


PART TWO: Like It or Not, We're Connected

by eadreytheiptscray



Series: A Rare Thing, Indeed [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Drift Compatibility, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Ghost Drifting, Jaeger Academy, Kaiju War (Pacific Rim), Knifehead Attack, Mutual Pining, Oblivion Bay, Panic Attacks, Post-Knifehead (Pacific Rim), Shao Industries, Skype, Slow Burn, The Upside Down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-08-18 21:38:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16525136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eadreytheiptscray/pseuds/eadreytheiptscray
Summary: Now that he's enrolled in the Jaeger Academy, Raleigh Becket learns the real purpose behind the Drift studies. Mako Mori, meanwhile, uncovers a few secrets of her own.Part two of five follows Raleigh Becket at the Jaeger Academy and Mako Mori after she graduates from Pacific Rim University. Get ready for:- Ghost Drifting and fading connections (absence makes the heart grow fonder!)- heartfelt Skype calls- jaeger pilot swagger- the start of the Chuck and Raleigh Rivalry- the aftermath of Knifehead (don't say I didn't warn you)





	1. Kowai Mono Nante Nai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK:  
> \- "We Need a New Weapon" by Ramin Djawadi  
> \- "War" by The Temptations  
> \- "RPG" by Sekai No Owari (chapter title inspiration)  
> \- "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Christian Akridge

**SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 2020**  
**THE SHATTERDOME, PACIFIC RIM NATIONAL PARK RESERVE**

 

Skirmish dates and details buzz around Raleigh's mind, drowning out the snores of his bunkmate below. Ever since debriefing a few days ago, he hasn't been able to sleep.

 _We always thought alien life would come from the stars_ , he thinks morosely, staring up at the ceiling. Mako floats into his anxious thoughts. "It would be a dream to see what lies beyond this world," she had told him. He shakes his head.

_I wasn't even fourteen when the first kaiju made land. August 10, 2013. At three meters tall, Trespasser rampaged through the park. By the time tank missiles took it down, it had killed three squadrons of US and Canadian troops and more than a dozen hikers._

_Then the Breach puked out another kaiju. Then another. Hundun killed a family of Filipino hikers. Kaiceph killed a foreign exchange student from Mexico. Scissure killed an Australian couple on their honeymoon._

He turns over, pulling out a page of notes from under his pillow. He mulls over the important details for the twentieth time: _September 15, 2014, the Pacific Rim Defense Corp is established to deal with the threat. November 9, 2014, the Jaeger Project begins, spearheaded by Dr. Caitlin Lightcap—the same scientist who oversaw our last few Drift tests. February 18, 2015, a two-pilot system is established to share the neural load._

_We've made new jaegers every year between 2015 and 2019, and we've gotten good at winning. But we've lost a lot, too: Victory Alpha; Tacit Ronin and its pilots, Duc and Kaori Jessop; and Cherno Alpha's first pilots before the Kaidonovskys. More kaiju keep coming through the Breach, but the budget's getting cut._

His watch beeps: 0500 hours. _Well, time for a run._

When he followed Yancy to the Jaeger Academy a month before, he never dreamed he'd be joining a top-secret private militia. He'd only heard of the Pacific Rim Defense Corps when he went to his school's military career fair senior year. None other than Tamsin Sevier was standing at one of the booths in the corner. She'd handed him her business card and told him to call her. He had.

On days like today, he wishes he could talk to Mako and tell her everything. _At least I've got Yancy_ , he muses, swinging his feet over the bed and dropping to the floor. _I don't have to keep secrets from him._ Raleigh fishes through his trunk for a pair of sweatpants and a clean T-shirt. Tucked away in the corner is his old rucksack, half-filled with Polaroid photos. The camera Mako gave him is at the bottom, nestled safely in its box.

The fluorescent lights inside the Shatterdome buzz and flicker, and Raleigh can't wait to get outside. The sun is peeking through the trees when he emerges, and he takes a deep breath. It's the only fresh air he can get during the day. Debriefings, lectures, and Kwoon training fill those eighteen hours. He turns left and breaks into a jog around the hillside concealing the Shatterdome.

He runs into Yancy on the other side.

"Hey, kid," Yancy says, not breaking his stride. They meet halfway, and Yancy turns to follow Raleigh back around. "How's training going?"

Raleigh shakes his head. "You never told me it'd be this hard."

"Getting in shape isn't so bad."

"I'm talking about the debriefings." They pass a two-meter rift in the wall of trees, where just a few saplings stand upright on the trampled rainforest floor. When the first kaiju escaped the Breach, it had carved that path through the ancient forest with no regard for the plants and animals in its wake. Raleigh shudders thinking about what that scene must have looked like.

"Oh." Yancy grimaces, slowing his pace. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure I threw up when they showed us what Trespasser looked like."

"How could they keep something like this secret?" Raleigh asks, though he already knows the answer.

"Ignorance is bliss." Yancy shrugs, picking up the pace again. "Why let the world know aliens are here when we don't have to? Besides," he says, stopping to catch his breath, "only a few of the best get to pilot these jaegers."

Raleigh's too lost in thought to take the bait. He gazes toward the launch bay, its five-meter reinforced doors shut tight. Usually, he can catch a glimpse inside to see the sleek two-pilot crafts that stalk into the forest, ready to tackle whatever threat is lurking beyond the Breach.

"It's gonna be okay, kid," Yancy says, clapping a hand on his little brother's shoulder. "Just remember this feeling. It might inspire you to pass your Ranger training and kick the crap out of these kaiju."

"If you say so." Raleigh fights back a wave of nausea.

"You're not going soft on me, are you?"

"What? No way."

"So I won't beat you in a race around the complex, then?"

Raleigh grins. _Yancy always knows how to cheer me up._ "In your dreams, old man!"

"What—hey!" Yancy takes off after his brother. "I wasn't ready!"

* * *

The last time Raleigh had talked to Mako was eight weeks ago, but it feels like years have passed. So he can't help but grin when her face finally pops up on Skype. "Hey, Mako," he says with a grin. "How's Tokyo?"

Mako beams. "It's going well. I like my internship. And the view isn't so bad." She pans her laptop around her hotel room to show off the skyline.

Raleigh whistles. "I'm jealous."

"How's your view?" Mako asks. "Or is that—?"

"Confidential? Yeah." _Like everything else around here. I wish I could tell you what's happening, Mako._

If she senses his thoughts through their Drift connection, she doesn't let on. "I hope you're enjoying yourself, at least."

"Well, it's been tough. I don't get a lot of sleep, and I still have a lot to learn about how things work around here. But at least Yancy's around, so it feels a little bit like home." He forces a smile for Mako's sake. "So, Tokyo, huh? How much of your bucket list have you checked off yet?"

"Not much. My internship takes up most of my time. I'm exhausted by the end of the day, so most days I go back to the hotel to sleep. But I have been to the Tokyo National Museum, and I'm planning a trip to the Skytree. I'll give you a picture of the skyline next time I see you."

 _Whenever that'll be._ Raleigh frowns.

" _Are you okay?_ " Mako asks in Japanese. "Sorry, force of habit—"

"No, I got it. All those Japanese lessons with you are paying off. Yeah, I'm okay. I just miss you."

"I'm glad you called. I miss you being in my head. I got so used to hearing your voice." She sighs and stares off screen. "Sometimes I swear I can hear you, but it sounds more like a ghost. I guess the distance and the lack of Drifting has made our connection fade." She frowns, and Raleigh wants nothing more than to reach through his laptop and wrap her up in a hug.

"'Like it or not, we're connected,'" he reminds her. "That seems like a lifetime ago."

"We didn't even know each other back then. I can't imagine not meeting you, though. I'm glad we were partners for that Drift experiment."

"Me, too."

"When—" Mako stops herself, frowning.

"When can we see each other again?" Raleigh frowns, too. "I've just finished the first eight weeks of my program. It looks like I'll be done at the end of October. After that, I don't know. Maybe we can grab coffee again once I'm allowed to visit."

"I'd like that." Mako's phone buzzes, and she sighs. "That's my alarm. I have to prepare for a meeting tomorrow. I'm giving a presentation on one of my mechs."

"Oh, wow! Good luck—not that you'll need it." Raleigh waves. "It was good talking to you. Go knock that presentation out of the park."

Mako laughs. "I will, Raleigh. Take care of yourself."

" _Always_ ," he replies in Japanese, winking. "See? I learned fast."

The ache returns when Mako's face winks off the screen, and Raleigh slumps back in the plastic chair. The lounge is empty, thankfully; the other recruits are all spending their one free day at the bar just off base. It's still early, but Raleigh wants nothing more than to sleep the rest of the day away. _I just have to get through the next two trimesters_ , he thinks, crawling into bed. _Then I get to see Mako again. And it will all be worth it._


	2. You're All I Need to Get By

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK:  
> \- "Music" by Daichi Miura  
> \- "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder  
> \- "What Is Hip?" by Tower of Power  
> \- "Fantasy" by Earth, Wind & Fire  
> \- "Big Gun" by AC/DC  
> \- "You're All I Need to Get By" by Aretha Franklin (chapter title inspiration)  
> \- "Love Sick" by SHINee

**MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2020**  
**A. IRVINE LIBRARY, PACIFIC RIM UNIVERSITY**

 

Mako’s phone buzzes loudly on the wooden desk in the silent reading room, snapping her out of her study groove. She grins when she sees who's calling her. Shoving her textbooks and laptop into her bag, she bolts upstairs to find some privacy.

“Hey, Raleigh,” she says, answering the Skype call. She glances around for an empty study room. Luckily, she doesn’t have to look long—with the new semester in full swing, most students aren’t prioritizing their study habits yet.

“Hey, Mako!" Raleigh's voice is garbled over the Skype app. "Wasn’t sure you were going to show up.”

Mako rolls her eyes. "This engineering class will be the death of me. It must be nice not having to study anymore.”

“You’d be surprised.”

She doesn’t know exactly what he means by that, but she doesn’t press the issue. When he enlisted, he told her he had to sign a bunch of NDAs, so there was little he could tell her about what he was doing. She didn’t even know where he was stationed, other than it was in the same time zone. Fortunately, they never ran out of things to talk about.

“Any new pictures?” She asks.

“Yeah!” Raleigh grins, pulling up a stack of Polaroids. “I went exploring on my day off and saw a sunset over the ocean. It was stunning.” He holds up a photo for her, which doesn’t come in too clearly through the computer screen. “The rest are of me and my bunkmate, Yancy and I standing outside of—ah, I don't think I can tell you that—and a couple of the other recruits. Anything new on your end?”

"Not since school started." She shrugs. “I've listened to that playlist you made me about a hundred times now. Have any more recommendations?”

Raleigh beams. “Absolutely!”

Mako hears him type furiously at his keyboard, and she pulls up her Spotify library. More than a dozen new songs are tacked on to the end of the playlist he'd sent her the year before, including "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder, "What Is Hip?" by Tower of Power, and "Fantasy" by Earth, Wind & Fire.

“Thanks! I can’t wait to listen to these.”

“You’ll love ‘em. And if you have any recommendations for me, feel free to add them to my playlist. I’ve listened to basically everything by Daichi Miura at this point. You’ve got good taste.”

Mako sweeps a strand of hair behind her ear and feels blush creep into her cheeks. “On it.” She spends a few minutes going through her various playlists—one for studying, two for working out, three for tinkering, depending on her mood—and picks her favorites for Raleigh’s playlist.

“Oh!” Raleigh shouts, making Mako jump out of her seat. “I’ve got some interesting news.”

“Don’t scare me like that!”

“Sorry. You remember Chuck, right?”

“Who—the guy we saw at Yancy’s graduation? His Drift partner?"

“That’s the one. The idiot broke his leg playing rugby the other day. He tried to jump over someone and landed right on his leg. Fractured his femur good.”

Mako winces. “Serves him right for being a show off.”

“That’s what I said. So now he’s on bed rest for a month and can’t do any of his, uh, usual duties around here,” he finishes vaguely.

 _There's more to this than he's letting on_ , she thinks. But despite her curiosity, she doesn't want to get him in trouble by pressuring him for information. Whatever program he's apart of had helped him find his purpose after college. She would settle for a vague answer any day.

A muffled sound on Raleigh's end distracts him, and he turns around. “Copy that. Looks like I gotta go, Mako," he says, giving her his cute hurt puppy-dog look. "I'll call you later—does next week work for you?"

“Sounds great. See you then!”

She closes the app, disappointed by the short conversation. At least she has the promise of a Skype call next week. Reluctantly, she heads out of the study room and back to the silent reading room, but she doesn't get much studying done that night. Instead, she finds herself immersed in the new songs on her favorite playlist.

* * *

The next week flies by, then another. Raleigh's duties get in the way of their Skype calls, which leaves Mako missing her best friend more than ever. Eventually, she stops expecting him to call on Monday afternoons. _At least we can still message each other_ , she muses, _but it's not the same._

Her loneliness dissipates as the semester ticks by. Challenging engineering courses mean late nights in the silent reading room, and with her renewed ambition to qualify for worlds, Mako fills up the rest of her time with tinkering and robotics club meetings. As October fades into November, and as Christmas gets closer, Mako wonders if she'll ever get to see Raleigh in person again.

It's nearly midnight on Christmas Eve before Mako and Raleigh can Skype again.

"I wish we could spend Christmas together," Raleigh sighs. "But it looks like I won't get to go off-base for a while."

"Were you not able to at the end of your training program?"

Raleigh shakes his head. "Plans changed. Besides, Yancy and I don't have an apartment to go home to."

 _Sensei may be reserved, but he would have let them stay with us_. But she just nods thoughtfully. "What are you and Yancy going to do about your Christmas traditions tomorrow?"

“Huh. We didn't think about that. I guess we’ll just have to quote the movies to each other,” he says with a shrug. “We have them memorized.”

“I know you do.” She can imagine Raleigh’s favorite scene now, of the kid from "A Christmas Story" sticking his tongue to the frozen pole. After Raleigh had gushed about that movie the year before, Mako had scoured every used bookstore in the area looking for the DVD. She could see why Raleigh liked it so much; she cracked up at nearly every scene. Jake had less than high opinions of the movie, but he’d stuck around to watch it with her, anyway.

"Are you celebrating Christmas with Tam again?"

Mako nods. "She got here yesterday. She and Jake have been spending a lot of time together. I think it helped him to get out of the house. Things are… tense between him and Sensei."

"Sorry to hear that."

"That's just how it is. Jake is fourteen now. He's struggling in school, which is the root of many of their arguments. I don't think he knows what he wants to do with his life."

"He's still a kid. He's got a while to figure that out. I'm twenty-one, and I don't have my life figured out. He'll be okay."

"I still worry about him."

"As any good big sister would." Raleigh grins. "Does he want to join the military? Maybe you could convince Tam to tell him about this program."

"I think she has. Sensei, too, when Jake was younger. Jake has always looked up to Sensei, so it seems like he would be happy following in his footsteps. But like you said, he's still a kid. He has a few years to go before he can enlist."

Raleigh yawns. "Sorry," he mutters. "It's—wow, it's late. Merry Christmas, Mako."

Mako glances at the clock at the corner of her screen: 2:29 a.m. "So it is. Merry Christmas, Raleigh." She yawns, too, and rests her chin on her hands.

"You need to go to bed?"

"Nope. I overslept this morning. Staying up late will get my sleep schedule back to normal."

"If you say so. So, now that it's Christmas, what are you hoping Santa will bring you this year?"

 _You_ , Mako thinks, smirking. "A plane ticket to Tokyo," she says aloud. "Ever since my internship ended, I've been dying to go back. There are so many things I still want to see. What about you?"

Raleigh glances around the lounge before leaning closer to the camera. "I'd love to go off-base and see you. Skype calls are great and all, but it's not the same as talking to you in person."

"I'm glad I mean that much to you."

"Of course you do! You're my best friend. Besides Yancy, of course."

"Obviously. I can never replace your brother."

"You're a _very_ close second." He winks, then yawns again. "This is the longest Skype call we've had. We've been on for three hours now."

"We needed to make up for all those calls we missed last semester."

Raleigh nods sleepily. "I hate that I was so busy. But duty calls."

"I know. I don't blame you. I was busy, too." Mako feels drowsiness descend on her. She shakes her head to stay awake, but she can't keep her eyelids open.

"Whenever I have a free day, I'll message you. Even if we can only talk for ten minutes, I'd like that."

Mako nods, finally succumbing to sleep. _Just five minutes_ , she thinks, resting her head on her desk. But it's 8:30 a.m. when she feels a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, honey," Tam says, gently shaking her awake. "Wake up. Breakfast is ready."

"Okay," she mutters, still half asleep. Her computer screen is dark, and her Skype camera is off. She rubs sleep from her eyes and pulls up her last conversation with Raleigh. He had logged off at 2:37 a.m.— _just after I fell asleep_ —but sent her a message beforehand:

 

> _**[RB]:** Good night sleeping beauty, have a good christmas_

_Hm, that doesn't sound like Raleigh_. She sends him a message back, knowing he won't see it for a few days, at least:

 

> _**[MM]:** Sleeping Beauty, huh?_

She shakes her head, shutting her laptop and heading downstairs to join her family at the breakfast table. She thinks nothing of Raleigh's odd message until a couple of hours later.

The afternoon sun trickles through the living room window on a quiet scene: a crackling fire in the fireplace, Sensei fast asleep on his side of the couch, Tam and Mako curled up under a fleece blanket, and Jake pretending not to watch the Hallmark movie on TV.

Mako's phone buzzes, startling her out of sleepiness. She's equally shocked to find that Raleigh had replied to her Skype message:

 

> _**[RB]:** … That was Yancy. I passed out right after you did._

"Who's that?" Tam asks conspiratorially.

"Raleigh. You remember him, right?"

"Of course. Tall, blond, nice smile. Cute," she adds, grinning when Mako glares at her. "How's he doing?"

"Still adjusting to… whatever it is he's doing. You know more about it than I do." She turns back to her phone to type out a reply:

 

> _**[MM]:** I thought so. Did you sleep well, then?_

"Not really. I'm just a recruiter."

"Oh. Well, he says it isn't easy, but having his brother around makes a big difference."

"Who's this you're texting?" Jake asks from the other side of the room.

"My best friend —"

" — her boyfriend —"

" — hey!" Mako smacks Tam with a throw pillow. "He's not my boyfriend."

"Riiiiiight," Jake says. "Is this the guy that used to drive you home after class?"

"Oh, you never told me that." Tam rounds on Mako. "He must like you."

"Not like _that_. Besides, neither of us want a relationship right now. Raleigh's enlisted, and I'm focusing on school and qualifying for worlds." She feels her phone buzz in her hand again.

 

> _**[RB]:** No rest for the weary here. I had to wake up at 0600. I might skip the Christmas party tonight and go to bed._
> 
> _**[MM]:** I don't blame you. I hope you get a good night's sleep!_

"I heard that 'right now' loud and clear," Jake says. "C'mon, sis, you fell asleep talking to him last night."

"How did you…?"

"I may have told him and Stacks this morning at breakfast." Tam grins and ducks under the blanket as Mako aims the pillow at her again. "What? It was cute!"

"It was 2:30—I was tired! You two are the worst."

"Aw, c'mon, Mako, we're just playing! Don't leave."

Over on the other side of the room, Sensei snorts and slowly sits up. Through bleary eyes, he looks around the room to find Tam holding her blanket up to her chin, Jake finally off his phone, and Mako standing in the middle of the living room with a throw pillow clenched in her right fist.

"What'd I miss?" He asks sleepily.

Mako, Jake, and Tam look at each other for a split second before doubling over.

"No, seriously, what did I miss?"

Aside from the pseudo-interrogation, Mako considers this Christmas to be the best one yet. As nighttime descends on their little house by the bay, she finds herself humming an Aretha Franklin song while getting ready for bed.

 _I do feel on top of the world_ , she muses, turning off the lights and crawling under the covers. _It was nice to talk to Raleigh, even if it was only over Skype. Maybe he'll get a day off next semester so we can finally hang out. And with worlds coming up, I have even more to look forward to. I have a feeling 2021 will be the best year yet._


	3. I'm Sitting on Top of the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK:  
> \- "Land of 1000 Dances" by Wilson Pickett  
> \- "What Is Hip?" by Tower of Power  
> \- "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder  
> \- "I'm Sitting on Top of the World" by Aretha Franklin (chapter title inspiration)  
> \- "Gipsy Danger" by Ramin Djawadi  
> \- "Rise" by The Glitch Mob

**SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2021**  
**LADY DANGER'S PILOT QUARTERS**

 

"Lady Danger report to bay oh-eight, level A42." The kaiju sighting alarm washes through Raleigh's dream, and he jolts awake. "Kaiju codename: Knifehead. Category III."

He finds himself out of bed and on his feet before he fully registers what's going on. The TV screen just over his shoulder lists out the deployment statistics on a ticker: _Category III kaiju. Codename: Knifehead. Last sighting: 10-mile perimeter. Jaegers deployed: Romeo Blue, Lady Danger._

"Hey, Yancy, wake up!" Raleigh pounds on the mattress above him until Yancy grunts and rolls over. "Movement in the Breach!" It takes a couple of good slaps to the face before Yancy is awake. "Hey, c'mon, we're being deployed."

"Right," Yancy groans, sitting up. "Morning."

Raleigh is halfway dressed by the time Yancy lowers himself off the top bunk. On the lower bunk at the other end of their quarters, Chuck is fast asleep, his cast propped up on a pillow. His snores fill the silences left by the alarm. Raleigh debates waking his sleeping roommate, but one glance at the clock makes him think better of it.

"What time is it?" Yancy asks sleepily.

"Two."

"A.m.?"

"Yep." Raleigh grins and bounces on the balls of his feet. "What do you say, another notch on the belt?" He holds up a fist eagerly.

Sleepily, Yancy returns the gesture and stumbles toward the bathroom.

There's a rapid knock at the door. "C'mon, Beckets, time for the drop."

"Hey, kid."

"Yeah?" Raleigh turns around and shares his brother's smirk.

"Don't get cocky."

It takes them just three minutes to get dressed—Raleigh now sporting a gray jacket identical to the one he got Yancy back in college—and saunter to the Drivesuit Room. Their swagger speaks louder than the matching Lady Danger emblems on the backs of their leather jackets. As they walk in step down the hallway, their dog tags clink together. The sound echoes down the corridor, drowned out only by the doors whooshing open to let them into the Drivesuit Room.

When the brothers step inside, Lady Danger's personnel are already scurrying around, their white jumpsuits splattered with grease and their faces set with determination. Like a well-oiled machine, the J-Techs assemble the pilots' combat suits piece by piece in seconds. The Beckets grin at each other as they put on their helmets. Next stop: their awaiting jaeger.

 _I never get tired of this_ , Raleigh muses, climbing into the rig on the left side. While the jaegers aren't roomy by any means—Lady Danger's Conn-Pod is a little larger than the other Mark IIIs at 2.5 meters high—it gives the two pilots enough space to throw punches. That's all the Beckets need.

A familiar voice comes in over the comm as Raleigh and Yancy finish strapping in.

"Good morning, Becket boys."

"Tendo! What's happening, my man?" Raleigh answers.

"How'd that date go with Alison last night, Mr. Choi?" Yancy chimes in.

"Oh, she loved me," Tendo says cheekily. "Her boyfriend, not so much."

Raleigh laughs. "You're gonna get your ass kicked."

"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, brother."

"Engage drop, Mr. Choi," comes another voice. Clipped. Stoic. British.

"Engaging drop, sir." Tendo clears his throat. "Marshal Pentecost on deck. Securing Conn-Pod and getting ready to drop."

"Release for drop," Yancy confirms.

The Conn-Pod canopy descends and seals with a _whir_. Another _whoosh_ signals that the Conn-Pod's air pressurization systems are good to go. The jaeger shudders to life. Warning lights and heads-up displays flicker for a moment before holding steady. The jaeger inches forward on a conveyor belt toward the closed bay doors.

"Engage pilot-to-pilot protocol," Marshal Pentecost orders. Tendo repeats it.

"Pilot-to-pilot connection protocol sequence." The jaeger's computer system, Lady Danger's robotic voice, echoes around the Conn-Pod. In front of them, Raleigh and Yancy watch the bay doors glide open to reveal a pitch-black morning. White bursts of lightning throw the ancient forest surrounding the Shatterdome in stark relief.

"Lady Danger ready and aligned, sir," Yancy says.

"Rangers, this is Marshal Stacker Pentecost. Prepare for Neural Handshake."

"Starting in fifteen seconds," Tendo replies. "Fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven…"

"Ready to step into my head, kid?" Yancy mutters to his little brother.

"Please, after you. Age before beauty, old man."

"Neural Handshake initiated," Lady Danger's computer says.

They lean back and take a deep breath. Tendo finishes his countdown, and the Becket brothers dive into the Drift:

_It's Thanksgiving dinner and Mom just pulled the rolls out of the oven… we're little kids playing monkey-in-the-middle with Jazmine… Brel's soothing voice croons from the vinyl record player in the living room… Dad should've gone back he could've saved Mum too… you never told me Ranger training would be this hard… why doesn't Jaz wanna talk to us Yancy?... Mama Papa where are you I can't see… Mako I hope you never have to see any of this… Just like Humpty Dumpty I'm gonna fall…_

They resurface and exhale.

"Right hemisphere calibrating," Yancy says, raising his arms.

Raleigh follows suit. "Left hemisphere calibrating." He grins as the two of them bring their fists together. The jaeger mimics their movements. _Everyone loves this_ , he thinks, and he feels Yancy roll his eyes.

"Gentlemen, your orders are to hold the Miracle Mile inside the Anteverse, do you copy?"

"Copy that, sir," Yancy says. He squints at the heads-up display, where a couple of green dots are converging on a target labeled Romeo Blue. "Sir, there's a second bogey heading for Romeo Blue's current location—"

"Gentlemen, you're protecting a planet of seven billion people. You will not risk those lives for a jaeger that holds two. Romeo Blue has their orders. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir." Yancy cuts off the comm. Raleigh doesn't need to read his brother's mind to know what he's thinking; indignation is written all over Yancy's face.

_That's cold._

_Yeah, I know._

_Then you know what I'm thinking._

"I'm in your brain," Yancy says aloud. "I know."

"Then let's go kick some kaiju ass." They step off the platform onto the soggy rainforest floor. "Here we go—come on, bro, put some muscle to it."

"Worry about yourself, kiddo."

Right foot forward, then left, then right again. In no time at all, they break out into a jog. They follow Trespasser's path to the Breach, a few minutes' trek by jaeger.

No matter how many missions they run, the Becket brothers never get used to stepping through the Breach. They hesitate for a split second before squeezing through the oozing wound in the massive cedar tree. The world goes black, and then the scarlet sky of the Anteverse is the first thing they see.

Raleigh had seen “Stranger Things,” of course. Practically every cadet had after overhearing all the veteran pilots talk about the Upside Down. He has to admit, the Anteverse looks similar. It is indeed a creepy mirror image of Earth. But it's much more terrifying than the show depicts.

Blackened trees in varying states of decay dot the bleak landscape. Above them, the sky glows red and orange, more sinister than any sunset Raleigh had seen on Earth. The power he feels piloting an invincible jaeger barely counteracts the helplessness of trekking through the alien world.

Yancy glances at the display and then at his brother. They both nod. A kaiju is speeding toward them, toward the Breach. They break out into a run to meet it head-on.

Knifehead bursts over the gray horizon into their jaeger's floodlights seconds later. With four arms, two legs, a heavily armored tail, and a blade-like snout, the kaiju looked like a cross between a dinosaur and a goblin shark.

 _"Do not confuse them with any terrestrial life forms_ ," Raleigh remembers one of his Academy instructors saying. _"They are built on a template of silicon, not carbon."_

 _He's right_ , Yancy answers. _These things aren't like anything else on Earth. They don't go down easy._ He and Raleigh brace for impact as the kaiju barrels toward them.

Knifehead lands the first blow, scratching Lady Danger's right shoulder. Yancy winces as his drivesuit responds to the sensation. They get into their fighting stance while the kaiju rights itself, and Raleigh drives a left hook into the beast's ugly head. The kaiju roars in pain. Before it can attack, the Beckets raise both fists in the air, and Knifehead goes down with a blow to its snout.

"Time to burn," Yancy says, and Lady Danger's right fist opens up into its lethal plasma cannon.

With another roar, Knifehead lunges at Lady Danger with all four clawed hands bared. Raleigh raises Lady Danger's left arm to block the attack, and they get a good look at the kaiju's glowing blue mouth and eyes. Lady Danger stumbles back a few steps.

"Yup." _Plasma cannon ready, Rals._

 _Blam!_ A burst of blue light hits the kaiju square in its midsection. Knifehead staggers backward, briefly towering over Lady Danger as the kaiju ascends a small hill. Yancy fires again, and the kaiju topples over the hill into a deep dry lakebed. They watch Knifehead fall out of sight into the great black abyss. Their scanners don't pick up an energy signature.

 _That's another one down_ , Raleigh thinks, breaking into a grin. _Let's go save Romeo Blue._

They sprint as fast as they can in a ten-ton jaeger through the dead forest and up a sloping mountainside. They hear the jaeger's Gatling gun before they stumble upon the fight. In the valley below, a kaiju prowls on all fours around Romeo Blue, standing tall with its fists clenched defiantly. The kaiju snarls and lunges, and the slow Mark I is no match for the kaiju's speedy attacks.

"Romeo Blue, this is Lady Danger," Yancy calls over the comm. "We're coming to assist. Do you copy?"

"Copy!" One of the Gage twins barks. Romeo Blue's Gatling chest lights up the dark forest, but it doesn't seem to do much damage to the squirrely kaiju.

Lady Danger saunters down the mountainside, Yancy already charging up the plasma cannon. The kaiju hesitates for a moment as the second jaeger joins the fray. Between Romeo Blue's Gatling chest and Lady Danger's plasma cannon, the kaiju doesn't stand a chance. It falls on the spot, its body riddled with blue bullet holes and a gaping wound in its side. No energy signature—another confirmed kill.

 _I hope Pentecost heard that_ , Raleigh thinks, glancing at Yancy.

_He did. He already knows we killed Knifehead, too._

_Better fire up the comm anyway. He hasn't heard us say it. You know he's a stickler for following protocol._

As the two jaegers saunter back toward the Breach, with Romeo Blue in the lead, Yancy turns the comm back on. Pentecost's roar fills the Conn-Pod.

"Lady Danger, what the hell is going on?"

"Job's done, sir," Raleigh replies. "Lit Knifehead up twice and killed that second kaiju for good measure."

"You disobeyed a direct order!"

Raleigh opens his mouth to reply, but Yancy cuts him off. _Don't say anything stupid and get us in more trouble._ "Respectfully, sir, we intercepted the kaiju and saved Romeo Blue."

_Pentecost can't challenge two kaiju kills, and he knows it._

_I know, kid, but he won't let us off easy for disobeying him._

"Get back to your post," Pentecost growls, "now."

"Yes, sir." But Raleigh's elation is short-lived.

"Kaiju signature rising!" Tendo shouts over the comm.

"Lady Danger, we're still getting a signature. Knifehead is still alive!"

A hundred meters in front of them, Romeo Blue disappears through the Breach. Raleigh and Yancy assume a fighter's guard and turn around, straining to make out any sign of movement.

"Get out of there. Do you copy? Get out of there now—"

A clawed hand fills their vision and swipes at Lady Danger. Sparks rain down as Knifehead's dagger-like claws rip into the Conn-Pod's hydraulic systems and electrical wiring. The brothers' ears pop and heads spin as the air pressurization systems fail. The sudden attack knocks the jaeger off-balance. Yancy raises Lady Danger's right arm, grabbing Knifehead by its snout to keep the jaeger upright. The floodlights illuminate the kaiju's hideous face, beady blue eyes, and jagged teeth.

Knifehead easily overpowers Lady Danger, jostling the two pilots inside the Conn-Pod.

_Raleigh, plasma cannon—_

_I know, I'm on it!_ Raleigh powers it up, but it's charging too slowly. He lowers Lady Danger's left arm for an uppercut, but the kaiju anticipates it. Knifehead swings one of its arms down to block the plasma cannon and cuts straight through the jaeger's left shoulder with its bony snout. Pain radiates through Raleigh's shoulder as his drivesuit delivers a crippling electrical shock.

"LOCCENT, we're hit!" Yancy calls. Momentarily sideswiped by Raleigh's pain, Yancy can't block the furious blows that Knifehead delivers to Lady Danger's right arm and Conn-Pod. The jaeger stumbles backward, knocking over a few decaying trees in its wake.

A jagged claw rakes a massive gash in the right side of the Conn-Pod.

"The hull… it went through the hull!" Raleigh cries in disbelief.

"Raleigh, listen to me, you need to—AAAAAAHHHHH!"

Raleigh can only watch as the kaiju tears out the right side of the Conn-Pod, pulling Yancy with it. He feels Yancy's weightlessness and helplessness as he soars through the air. Seconds later, he's gone. Raleigh exhales with a _whoomp_ like he's had the wind knocked out of him.

"No!" He cries, grimacing with every electrical shock his drivesuit can muster. The remaining half of the Conn-Pod turns red with warning lights. It takes every ounce of strength Raleigh has left to transfer his Plasmacaster to his right arm. But hearing Knifehead's roar just outside the disabled jaeger drives out every feeling but rage.

Knifehead knocks Lady Danger into a massive cedar tree and continues slashing at the hull. Raleigh's left side burns; he can't feel his left arm anymore. Raising his right arm over his head, he engages the Crisis Command Matrix and executes a single command: Plasma Cannon Overload.

A beady blue eye meets Raleigh's as the kaiju slices a claw through his side of the Conn-Pod. _It knew we were in here,_ he thinks. _But how?_

"Plasma cannon loading," Lady Danger's computer says in its emotionless voice.

Seconds feel like hours as the kaiju continues to tear away at the jaeger. With each attack, Raleigh's drivesuit inflicts further pain, but it doesn't compare with the mental strain of piloting Lady Danger alone. Finally, the plasma cannon is fully charged.

 _I've only got one shot at this._ With a furious roar, Raleigh fires the cannon where Knifehead's heart would be. He nearly blacks out, but it works: The kaiju falls once and for all.

Each step toward the Breach is agonizing. Without a co-pilot, all Raleigh can do is shuffle the jaeger one meter forward. He takes one step. _Yancy's gone._ Then another. _I can't feel Yancy._ Then a third.

It takes him thirty minutes to crawl through the Breach. The red glow and sulfuric smell of the Anteverse vanish as he emerges back on Earth. Dawn is breaking over the horizon. The rain has stopped. He smells the wet earth beneath Lady Danger's feet. Just steps from the Breach, Raleigh kneels, and the jaeger falls forward.

He untangles himself from the rig and stumbles out of the Conn-Pod. His left arm dangles uselessly at his side. Each step feels like someone is hammering nails into his skull. As the winter chill cuts through his damaged drivesuit, he realizes he's bleeding.

"Yancy," he moans, falling backward onto the rainforest floor. Just a few meters away, PRDC medics and J-Techs swarm up the hill. The last thing Raleigh remembers before passing out is Yancy's final plea echoing through the Ghost Drift: _Raleigh, listen to me!_

Two thousand miles away, Mako Mori wakes up screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much of the chapter content comes from the first Pacific Rim movie and the official novel by Alex Irvine, with some minor tweaks.
> 
> The Upside Down from "Stranger Things" was a major source of inspiration for the Anteverse. Since the kaiju are scaled down for plot purposes, I scaled the jaegers down, too. They resemble the AMP suits from "Avatar" (the James Cameron movie, not the live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender" flop).
> 
> **CONTINUITY EDIT: I cut out the punctuation in the Beckets' Drift thoughts to better distinguish jaeger Drifting from the experimental Drifting.


	4. Shin Sekai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***HEADS UP: Contains descriptions of a panic attack***
> 
> —————
> 
> CHAPTER SUMMARY:  
> \- "Oh Death" by Spiros Maus and Bellabeth  
> \- "Feeling Good" by Apache and Cherry Lena  
> \- "Let Me Hear" by Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas  
> \- "Disappear" by Issues  
> \- "Shin Sekai" by Hello Sleepwalkers (chapter title inspiration)

**SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2021**  
**HOTEL DEL TORO, LOUISVILLE, KY**

 

An eerie red haze, bleak black landscape, and electric-blue eyes fill Mako's nightmares. Horrific, disjointed scenes play out in her mind: One second she's standing in a massive mech, the next she's staring at a demon with rows of jagged teeth. The monster utters a prehistoric roar—or is that guttural scream human? Suddenly, a panicked voice pierces through the noise: _Raleigh, listen to me!_

She snaps her eyes open and finds herself screaming.

"Mako, what's wrong?" Her roommate, Jamie, bolts upright and nearly falls out of bed.

_My left side… I can't feel anything. What's going on?_

"Okay, Mako, it's okay." Jamie switches on the light and lays a hand on her friend's shoulder. Startled, Mako shoves her away with her left arm— _it's still there?_ —and sits up, taking in gulps of air. But the heavy feeling in her chest doesn't go away. Neither does the panic.

"Where are… where are we?" She manages. Her lungs burn— _why can't I stop hyperventilating?_

"We're at a hotel in Louisville. It's the weekend of worlds—Mako, hey, listen to me: You're going to be okay. Was it a nightmare?"

"I… I don't know. It… it felt so… so real." _I've never had a nightmare like that. This can't be normal._

"Well, it's over now. Take a deep breath. You're having a panic attack, but you're going to be okay. I'm going to get you some water." Jamie leaves Mako's side and sprints to the bathroom, coming back with a paper cup filled to the brim. Mako takes it with shaky hands.

The beastly snarl and haunting plea echo in Mako's mind again, and she shakes her head to get rid of them. _I've heard that voice before, but where?_

Her phone buzzes, and she snatches it from the nightstand. But it's just her alarm: 7:30 a.m.

"How are you feeling?" Jamie asks. "Do you want me to get you anything from—"

"I'm fine," Mako snaps. She takes as deep of a breath as she can. "Sorry. Go to breakfast without me. I just need a minute to…"

Jamie nods. "Gotcha. See you downstairs." Throwing on a sweatshirt and lacing up her Converse, Jamie slips out of the hotel room to catch up with the rest of the PRU robotics team. Mako slumps back onto her pillow and stares at the popcorn ceiling.

_I don't think it was just a dream. Maybe it's Raleigh's nightmare, and I'm in his head again. Or maybe something is wrong._

She hesitates for a minute before pulling up Skype on her phone. _Whatever it is, I need to know for sure._

> **[MM]:** _Hey, Raleigh. How are you doing?_
> 
> **[MM]** : _We made semi-finals at worlds so we’re in Louisville for another day. If you have time later today, can we Skype?_

She doesn't expect a reply right away, but just this one she wishes a message would light up her screen immediately. _Tam would know what to do._ Pulling up her contacts, Mako taps on Tam's number. It rings and rings and rings.

"This is Tamsin Sevier. I've stepped away from my phone, but leave your name and number and—"

Mako hangs up. _Of course—the time difference. It’s probably 4:30 back home._ She sighs, hesitating before tapping the only other number on her emergency contacts list. Someone she knows will be up.

"Mako." Sensei's usual clipped voice sounds even more strained.

"Sensei, I... " _I should have thought about what I wanted to say before calling him._ "Do you have time to talk?"

"Not now. There's been an, uh, incident at the base." In the background, people are rushing around and chattering loudly. Panicking. "Nothing you need to worry about. I'll call you after your competition."

"Okay," she says.

He hangs up with a _click_.

Her heart starts racing again, and the room spins. Those beady blue eyes have etched themselves on her eyelids. Going back to sleep is impossible—not that sleep is an option, anyway. Slowly, Mako peels the sweat-soaked sheets off her and sets her feet on the floor.

 _Like Jamie said, it's going to be okay. Raleigh will call this afternoon and we'll laugh about this. But right now, I don't need distractions. We've finally made semi-finals, and I'm not going home empty-handed._ Armed with this new resolve, Mako stands and starts her motivational playlist before heading to the shower. There's not enough time for her to grab breakfast afterward, so she throws on a pair of jeans and her team T-shirt before dashing out the door.

Her teammates are waiting for her in the lobby with grins on their faces. Ignoring her churning stomach, she returns a weak smile and saunters ahead, leading the way to the Kentucky Exposition Center. Jamie jogs to catch up with her.

"Feeling better?" She asks quietly.

"A little."

"Panic attacks suck. I've had them before, so I know what it's like. To feel like your world is ending."

Mako just nods. She glances down at her phone, hoping to see a familiar name on the screen. It’s blank. But she shrugs off the dejection and focuses on the massive white building on the horizon.

The 2021 World Robotics Championship is living up to its promise to be the biggest and best yet. Over thirty teams from schools across the country had flocked to the convention center that weekend to compete for eternal glory. Only eight remain. The semi-finalists and spectators crowd the exhibition center, and the excitement and tension are palpable.

Mako pulls her playbook close to her chest and fiddles with the lanyard around her neck. All they have to do is beat their opponent to advance to finals. Should they win in their division, just three rounds against the other division champion stand between them and the title of World Champions. Mako finds an empty alcove and faces her teammates.

"Did everyone review the plans last night?"

They all nod.

“Great. Those tweaks we made to our strategy should give us an edge over our competitors. If we stick to the plan, we can advance to finals with no problem.”

The team huddles together for their pregame chant, and Mako can't help but grin. Whatever doubts she's having about her nightmare can wait. Four years of hard work had led her to this grand stage. She might as well enjoy herself.

They're not the first team to compete that morning, so they pass the time by watching the other semi-finalists duke it out in the ring. Finally, it's their turn to do battle—against their rivals, no less.

Every year, they had lost to the same team from North Carolina. _There's no way I'm losing to them at my last robotics championship_ , Mako decides as her team steps onto the arena floor. The two teams shake hands and line up on either side of the ring. The emcee riles the crowd up, wishes luck to the two alliances, and counts down from ten. Then the battle begins.

Mako fiddles furiously with the controls in her hands, maneuvering her mech to grab as many cones as possible. While she focuses on stacking them to rack up points, the other driver on her team positions the movable goals to acquire even more. With a minute left, they're in the lead.

Unfortunately, Mako's concentration doesn't last long. _Raleigh, listen to me!_ breaks through her thoughts yet again. Her hands freeze at the controls as she tries to shake the memory out of her head. That second's hesitation is all the other team needs to pull ahead.

Now out of cones and time, Mako scoops up any cones left around her mech and piles them on a stack worth double points. With fifteen seconds left, she focuses all of her thoughts on the one task at hand.

"Five, four, three, two —"

Mako moves her mech away from the cone tower. But in her haste to withdraw her mech to ensure all of her points count, she doesn't realize how close it had been to the base of the tower. She can only watch in horror as the tower falls.

A chorus of cheers and sympathetic groans fill the exhibit hall. She feels her face flush bright red and grits her teeth to keep herself from swearing. _What a rookie mistake. After all that hard work, all that planning—it meant nothing._ It's all Mako can do to stay calm as she shakes hands with her rivals, their triumphant smiles sickening to look at.

She doesn't talk to any of her teammates on the walk back to the hotel.

_I did everything I could to speed up our mechs' reactions times. But it all came down to me. It was my error, not my mech's, that cost us the championship._

Her teammates steer clear of her for the rest of the trip. Not even Jamie comes to reassure her. Whether they're angry at her or afraid of her, she doesn't care. All she wants to do is go home, curl up under the covers, and forget that the world championships ever happened. She stares out the plane window during the entire flight back to Seattle, blasting music to drown out her thoughts.

Just when she thinks her weekend can't get any worse, she finds a solemn-looking Tam waiting for her at home.

"Hey, honey. Stacker said you called—"

"What's going on?" Mako drops her bags on the hardwood floor and joins her at the kitchen table.

"It's about your friend, Raleigh."

Her heart sinks, and she slumps back in her chair. "What about him?"

"His brother, Yancy—he was killed in the line of duty this morning."

 _Raleigh, listen to me!_ But this time, she can't shake those haunting words. And now she knows whose they are. "Yancy is … dead? How?"

Tam shakes her head. "I don't know. We got the memo this morning. Stacker couldn't call you back because of—oh, honey, I'm so sorry."

Mako sobs into Tam's bony shoulder as the wave of anguish finally crashes down on her. _That wasn't a nightmare. I heard Yancy die. I felt what Raleigh felt. We're still connected._

They sit like that for what feels like hours. The exhaustion and jet lag eventually catch up to Mako, however, and she makes her way upstairs to her room. Sleep doesn't come easy—beady blue eyes and unearthly roars fuel her nightmares. After three hours of tossing and turning, Mako tears off the covers and sets to work on a new project, one she knows will take months to design and build.

Sleepless nights turn into months. With each passing week, the news seems to get worse: Raleigh is dismissed from the service and disappears, Sensei and Jake stop speaking to each other altogether, Tam's cancer returns. Being on campus reminds Mako of Raleigh's absence, and being at home depresses her. Only tinkering makes her feel like she has a purpose. So every night for the next three months, Mako pours all of her energy into her pet project.

By the time graduation arrives, she's all too eager to leave town. A job offer gives her the chance she needs. Three days after commencement, she boards a plane to Hong Kong and doesn't look back.


	5. I Don't Know How to Forget Your Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK:  
> \- "Shao Industries" by Lorne Balfe  
> \- "Call Me Newt" by Ramin Djawadi  
> \- "Black Memory" by The Oral Cigarettes  
> \- "Worker Ant" by Hello Sleepwalkers  
> \- "So Far Away" by Martin Garrix, David Guetta, Romy Dya, and Jamie Scott (chapter title inspiration)

**THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 2022**  
**SHAO INDUSTRIES, HONG KONG**

 

Mako steps off the elevator onto the Biology Division floor and immediately wishes she were back downstairs. It's too bright, too quiet, and too sterile here, and she feels out of place in her grease-stained navy jumpsuit. But she's on the hunt for a neuroscientist; integrating the new Pons technology into the Mark V drone prototype is proving harder than she had anticipated.

Most of the scientists on the floor are hard at work, peering over white tables or gathered around holoscreens or muttering to their colleagues within glass-walled lab rooms.

 _Surely I can find someone who can help_ , Mako thinks, glancing at the silver nameplates on the uniform offices and cubicles. She's so busy scanning the names and areas of expertise that she runs right into someone equally distracted. The manila folder falls out of his hands and the papers inside scatter.

" _My apologies, sir_ ," she mutters in Cantonese, picking up the documents closest to her.

" _Sorry, sorry_ ," the scientist replies, haphazardly shoving the papers back into their folder. "Not again. I've got to be more careful," he murmurs to himself in English.

 _I know that voice_. Mako snaps her head up. The man's hair is shorter and his arms are covered in tattoos, but his thick black glasses and manic look are unmistakable. "Newt?"

"Woah, Mako, hey." He picks up the last of his papers and helps Mako to her feet. "It's been a long time. I didn't know you worked for Shao."

"I could say the same about you. Weren't you a professor at PRU?"

"Nah, just a lowly lab tech. I started here a few months ago. The pay's much better," he laughs. "How are you?"

"Busy," she says, starting down the hallway again. "I'm having trouble with the Pons for Bracer Phoenix. Actually, I could use your help. Know any neuroscientists who can give me a hand?"

"Of course—follow me."

"Great. Thanks, Newt."

"No problem." He leads her deep into the labyrinth of white hallways. "You know, we should really catch up. It's been two years, at least. Hey, I know—are you doing anything for lunch?"

"It needs to be quick. I have a lot to do before I leave for Tokyo tomorrow."

"Yeah? What's there?"

"I'm just sightseeing, nothing too exciting."

"Cool, cool. There's a place around the corner that serves a mean cheong fun. You in?"

"Sure. Just let me get this Pons problem figured out first. Want to meet in"—she checks her watch—"two hours?"

"Sounds good to me." Newt stops outside of a sunny corner office belonging to a Dr. Jing Wei. "Hope she can help. Oh, before you go, what's your number?"

* * *

"How did you find this place?" Mako asks two hours later as they chow down on some of the best street food she's ever tasted.

"It's hidden, isn't it? I found it after getting lost on my way home one night," he says sheepishly. "But it worked out. It's my favorite lunch spot." He gobbles up a roll and wipes sauce off his chin with the back of his hand. "So," he says, mouth full, "still keep in touch with Raleigh Becket? You two were practically inseparable in college."

Mako frowns. "I haven't heard from him since his brother died last year."

"Oh, yeah, I heard about that. It was a kaiju attack, right?"

"I didn't know that at first. But when I learned about the Jaeger Program…" She trails off, remembering the recruiter explaining that Shao Industries was essentially building giant robots to protect Earth from an alien invasion. She'd almost laughed—until the recruiter showed the new hires grainy photos of Trespasser. Its beady blue eyes had sent shivers up her spine.

"It's a hard pill to swallow, isn't it? Dr. Lightcap gave me the details when she recruited me. Shao Industries just tells the abridged version."

Mako finishes the last of her cheong fun and tosses the bowl in a nearby bin. "It's not just that. I… I think I felt Yancy die. After seeing Trespasser and the jaegers we're working on—"

"Wait, you felt that? How?"

"I believe Raleigh and I still shared a faint connection through the Drift."

"That's incredible."

The kaiju's roar and Yancy's panicked scream echo faintly in Mako's mind. "No, it's horrific. I still get nightmares about it." She shakes her head to get rid of the memory. "Besides, those college days are in the past. Now I build jaegers." Her watch beeps: Twenty minutes are up. "Ready to head back?"

Newt nods, and they set off for the gleaming Shao Industries skyscraper overlooking the harbor.

"What made you leave PRU?" Mako asks after a few minutes.

"I got tired of studying people. After hearing what happened with... well, I wanted to study kaiju. Understand their nature." He lowers his voice. "Between you and me, I'd love to dissect specimens myself, not get the data secondhand from the K-Scientists over at the Shatterdome. But," he sighs, "developing drone jaegers is the next best thing."

"How so?"

"It, uh…" His eyes go out of focus for a few seconds, but he recovers quickly. "It's a means to an end, I guess." And he says nothing more about it.

They step into the gleaming white lobby and head for the elevators. "It was good catching up with you, Newt," Mako says as she presses the down button. "It's nice to see a familiar face around here."

"You, too, Mako. Hey, have fun in Tokyo this weekend."

She smiles, steps into the awaiting elevator, and braces for the drop. Her stomach lurches slightly at the rapid descent. The elevator doors soon open with a hiss, and she's greeted by the familiar whirring and clanking of machinery. _Home._

It doesn't take long for her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting in the cavernous Jaeger Testing facility. Spread out over half of the floor below are various parts of Bracer Phoenix: the swiveling chest-mounted cannons and anti-kaiju missile launchers toward the wall, the heavily armored arms and legs in the center, and the "Conn-Pod" near Mako's table in the corner. The latter, unlike in other jaegers, doesn't have two rigs to accommodate pilots. Instead, it's controlled by a quantum data core that will render the two-pilot system obsolete.

That's what Liwen Shao believes, at least. Despite Mako's protests—"remote systems can be hacked or compromised," she'd insisted when Shao first proposed the unmanned Mark V prototype—drones are the future at Shao Industries. Rolling up her sleeves, Mako descends to her dark corner to continue her work integrating the Pons into the mech. Hours pass before she leaves for the night, and the Hong Kong skyline lights her way home in the darkness.

* * *

Her nightmare wakes her up three hours before her flight. It doesn't surprise her in the least, considering she hasn't talked to anyone about Yancy's death since it happened. She shakes off the numbness in her left arm and blasts Hello Sleepwalkers to drown out the ringing in her ears. It doesn't take her long to make herself a cup of tea, grab a breakfast bar, and gather her travel bags together; the Uber picks her up fifteen minutes later in front of her apartment.

Mako's first stop in Tokyo is her hotel, where she leaves behind all but her modest satchel and the map she'd saved from her first visit. _The last time I was here_ , she thinks bitterly, _Raleigh and I were still talking_.

Skype hadn't notified her of anything important in over a year. Once, six months ago, she saw a message on her screen, but it was only a reminder to update the app. She'd practically thrown the phone across the room. She deleted the app not long after that.

 _But it’s a new year_ , she reminds herself. _And a new chance to get answers about my family_. Not knowing where to start, she walks toward Shinjuku Station. Something tells her to take the Chuo-Ome Line. She does.

The skyscrapers and bustling city streets soon give way to suburban housing and groves of trees. For nearly an hour, Mako stares out the window as the city whizzes by. Her growling stomach eventually trumps her wanderlust. At Hamura, she steps off the train in search of something to eat.

 _This place seems familiar_. Though the shops around the square look fairly new, the houses flanking the streets don't. As Mako snacks on a pastry from a local coffee shop, she wanders down one of the streets branching out from the center of town. Trees and flowers flourish in tiny street-side gardens, and traditional houses with rust-colored tile roofs testify to the city's historic roots. It's a refreshing sight in such a large, modern city.

Amid the greenery, a flash of red catches Mako's eye. A little girl's dress shoe is sitting on a quiet street corner. _Why would someone leave it behind?_ But as she gets closer, she realizes it's marking a makeshift memorial. Discolored vases full of fresh flowers adorn the concrete wall, and faded paper cranes litter the ground. There are a handful of laminated photographs, too—at least a decade old, judging by the subjects' clothes.

Mako scans the photos reverently, her eyes falling on the fire-engine red shoes in one of the pictures. Her heart stops when she recognizes the figures in the photo.

 _That's… that's Mom and Dad. And me. But why…_? She examines the little shoe at her feet. Its color may have faded from sitting in the sun for so long, but the scuff and scorch marks haven't. Mako falls to her knees, clutching the photograph in her hand. _It wasn't just a nightmare_ , Mako realizes, thinking of the acrid black smoke and blaring alarms that would plague her as a kid—and then after her third Drift with Raleigh.

A shuffling behind her startles her, and she jumps to her feet. An elderly woman steps forward to lay a fresh bouquet at the memorial.

" _Excuse me, ma'am_ ," Mako says, bowing, " _what happened here_?"

The woman sighs and leans on her cane. " _There was a terrible fire sixteen years ago_ ," she replies. " _An_ _entire apartment building burned to the ground. Not many of our neighbors survived._ " She gazes sadly at the photos, then at Mako. " _Are you from around here_?"

" _I was raised in Tokyo_ ," she says, " _but I was adopted when I was ten. I never knew why I lost my parents_."

The woman takes the photo Mako hands her, and her eyes water. " _Little Mako_?"

Mako nods and feels tears slide down her cheeks. " _No one told me what happened_."

" _I'm not surprised_." The woman clenches her cane, and Mako sees her eyes flash with indignation. " _It's no secret that that corporation_ "—she motions to the industrial building looming behind them—" _wanted the land. No one could prove that the fire was intentional. But I believe it was no accident_."

" _What has the city done about it_?"

" _Hamura is a sizable city. Other things take priority. They mourned our dead and moved on. Younger generations may not know what happened here, but we will never forget. In horrific circumstances like these, we can only rely on our neighbors for support. The world doesn't care until it affects them_."

Those words echo in Mako's mind for the rest of the week. Where she longed for answers about her family, a desire for vengeance burns in its place. She'd seen firsthand how secret wars could haunt a community while the world remained oblivious—or worse, stood by and did nothing. _I refuse to sit on the sidelines now that I know jaeger pilots are dying at the hands of kaiju._

With renewed vigor, she sets to work on Bracer Phoenix. But she's no longer focusing on the next jaeger. Now, she has her eyes set on the pilot seat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **CONTENT EDIT: I altered the date of the apartment fire from twelve to sixteen years ago. Mako would be around 5 years old then.


	6. War—What Is It Good For?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **ON HIATUS UNTIL JANUARY 2019—SEE END CHAPTER NOTES**
> 
> * * *
> 
> CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK:  
> \- "Rise of the Jaegers" by Lorne Balfe  
> \- "World Gone Mad" by Bastille  
> \- "Every Breath You Take" by Aaron Krause and Liza Anne  
> \- "Brave Shine" by Aimer  
> \- "War" by The Temptations (chapter title inspiration)

**MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2022**  
**MAKO'S APARTMENT, HONG KONG**

 

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Mako pries her eyes open long enough to hit the snooze button. _Just five more minutes_ , she thinks drowsily. Three hours of dreamless sleep doesn't justify waking up at 5 a.m.

As if the last seven months hadn’t been difficult enough, the hybrid nightmares had been keeping Mako up at night. Only this time, she doesn’t have anyone to commiserate with. Last night’s nightmare was particularly terrifying: Around 2 a.m., she'd woken up gasping after suffocating on smoke and sulfur.

Those five minutes fly by. Groaning, Mako sits up and slides into a pair of slippers tucked beside her bed. She turns on the local news station before shuffling to the bathroom to brush her teeth and comb her hair flat. It's right as she changes into a clean jumpsuit and ambles to the kitchen that she hears the newscaster's report:

"— _returning with breaking news out of Canada. An American journalist has captured footage of what many are calling a kaiju threat._ "

Mako snaps her head up. _Kaiju?_ She whirls around to see the TV, her tea forgotten in its mug on the counter. On screen behind the broadcaster, a reel of shaky camera footage shows a dense forest in what reminds Mako of the Pacific Northwest.

" _What you're about to see may be disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised._ "

The unearthly roar chills Mako to the bone, and she collapses into her armchair. The beast in the news footage looks amphibian with its low, flat body and slimy skin. Two beady blue eyes sit on top of its head, which tapers into two points on either side like an arrowhead. Sharp spines run the length of its body, held up by six powerful legs.

The kaiju's size is unbelievable—at least two meters wide and five meters long, based on its proximity to the trees. The thing slithers across the rainforest floor with incredible speed, but its footsteps send the whole forest shaking. Leaves fall off the trees as it passes by. In the background, the journalist mutters obscenities that have been bleeped out for the sake of an innocent audience.

Another heavy thumping shakes the earth, but this time a jaeger bursts onto the scene. The camera shakes violently as the journalist scurries away, only for it to refocus on a sandy coastline a few seconds later. The antagonists come crashing onto the beach soon afterward.

The jaeger is fast, and it quickly knocks the kaiju off balance with a swift punch to the head. But the kaiju squirms out of the jaeger's reach. _It's headed for the ocean_ , Mako thinks. The jaeger pilots must think that, too; the jaeger pins the kaiju with blades mounted on each of its forearms, stopping the kaiju in its tracks. Blue blood oozes onto the sand and starts steaming.

The clip stops there. The newscaster returns with a grimace. " _We will keep you updated as we follow this story._ "

The full weight of the news doesn't hit Mako until she's on her way to work. _The Jaeger Program is out of the bag. I wonder how the Pacific Rim Defense Corps is going to respond—or Shao Industries, for that matter._ She finds the whole city abuzz with news, but not as much as on the Jaeger Testing floor.

Every screen in the facility is tuned into different news channels, all of which are reporting the so-called Kaiju War coverage live. The veteran J-Techs are filling in the gaps for their newer colleagues: The jaeger in the clip is Striker Eureka, the only Mark V in service, completed three years ago. After watching the same news story five times, Mako pries herself away from the screen and back to Bracer Phoenix's test run data. But her concentration fades when she overhears her colleagues' conversations.

" _I heard Striker Eureka was the last jaeger built because the Shatterdome got too crowded,_ " one of the J-Techs mutters, putting the finishing touches on Bracer Phoenix's armor.

" _How many are there now_?" Her colleague asks. " _If I'm counting right, we've made twenty-three jaegers so far, not counting Bracer here._ "

" _We've lost eight. I remember Victory Alpha went first in 2016, then Tacit Ronin a couple of years later. I couldn’t believe it. But then the rest of them went down in quick succession: Brawler Yukon and Horizon Brave in 2020, Solar Prophet and Lady Danger in '21, and Eden Assassin and Lucky Seven this year._ "

 _I wonder if Yancy was in one of those fallen jaegers_ , Mako thinks. _I wish I had access to those reports_. Now she understands why Newt had been so frustrated about getting secondhand information from K-Science officers at the PRDC. But some news was better than no news—right?

" _Everyone, they’re making an announcement_!" Someone calls from across the floor. All of the J-Techs, including Mako, race over to the large TV that had been wheeled to the center of the facility. Mako's breath catches in her chest when she sees Sensei's grim face on the screen. The Chinese translator on the news doesn't do Sensei's commanding voice justice, but the speech still carries weight:

_"This is Marshal Stacker Pentecost of the Pacific Rim Defense Corps. I understand you may not have heard of me, nor of our organization. For the past nine years, we have been operating in secret to prevent the world from descending into chaos. Today, the time has come for us to step out of the shadows._

_"On August 10, 2013, at 0700 hours local time, the first kaiju emerged from the Breach. It is a portal between two dimensions: our world and the kaiju's. We do not know what these beings want from us, other than they mean us harm._

_"Since then, hundreds of lives have been lost at the hands of the kaiju. The Pacific Rim Defense Corps was established to deal with this threat. It was formerly a joint effort between the United States and Canada. Today, it has become a global effort. We cannot keep pretending that this fight is our own. Our world is no longer safe. That is why I'm speaking to you today from the Shatterdome in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve._

_"With your support, we can provide jobs to those looking to serve a noble cause. With your allegiance, we can face the monsters that are at our door. And with your sacrifice, we can ensure that future generations will never live in fear."_

A hush falls over the crowd as Sensei finishes speaking. For a moment, Mako had forgotten that he was anything other than a commanding officer in a crisp blue suit.

More than ever, she misses home. She misses Sensei and Tam and Jake. As she turns back to the still incomplete Bracer Phoenix, she wishes she could go back to a time when she didn't know the world was ending. Back to her first few years of college, or to her childhood spent in the Pentecosts' care.

She finds a small part of herself missing Raleigh, though she had tried so hard to move on. He could be dead for all she knows—after all, he hadn’t made any attempt to contact her. But she shrugs those thoughts aside and turns back to the jaeger looming over her.

Many of her peers feel overwhelmed by the news, too, she realizes as the day goes on. It's one thing to know about a threat overseas, but quite another to see it broadcast worldwide. Aside from the general machinery noises and the chattering newscasters on TV, the Jaeger Testing floor remains virtually silent for the rest of the day.

* * *

The world does indeed rally behind Sensei and the Pacific Rim Defense Corps. It's not long before the United Nations starts sending aid in the form of patrol boats along the Washington and British Columbia coastlines, all too aware of how close Ceramander had been to slipping into the sea. A K-Watch channel is established, too, to provide 24-hour coverage of the Breach in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.

Then the rationing begins, worse in Canada and the United States as food and supplies go to prospective Jaeger Academy recruits, K-Science officers, J-Techs, and Strike Group personnel flocking to the Shatterdome. In early November, Mako joins them.

A feeling of familiarity settles over her as she steps onto the newly constructed helipad. The tops of ancient cedar trees conceal most of the Shatterdome activity below—and, somewhere in the heart of the forest, the Breach itself. She shudders.

Inside, the Shatterdome is swarming with people wearing greasy jumpsuits, white button-ups, winter vests, and leather jackets. Mako recognizes a couple of jaeger names emblazoned on the latter: Echo Saber and Mammoth Apostle, both Mark IVs and the first drone jaegers ever produced.

She'd read up on those jaegers while applying for Shao Industries, as Liwen Shao considered them her pet projects. But both needed two pilots, and operating those unmanned jaegers was a challenge, from what Mako had heard. She thinks of Bracer Phoenix lying on the Jaeger Testing floor, not yet abandoned but no longer a priority. It would likely sit there gathering dust until the world calms down— _or ends_ , Mako thinks grimly. _There just isn't any time to try anything new._

Weaving in and out of a labyrinth of dimly lit hallways, Mako carries a small box of possessions to her home-away-from-home. She almost crashes into a jaeger pilot on her way there.

"Mako?" He has a gruff Australian accent and the haughty look Mako remembers, but his former carefree demeanor is gone.

"Chuck?"

Chuck opens his mouth to say something, but he apparently thinks better of it. Slowly, he shakes his head and ambles down the hallway. He walks with a slight limp— _he broke his leg playing rugby, that's right_  —and disappears toward the mess hall. It's only after Mako watches him leave that she realizes how strange the encounter had been.

 _We've never met in person. He might have recognized me from Yancy's graduation, but there's no way he could know my name. Unless…_ She makes a mental note to peek at his personnel file. Maybe he Drifted with Raleigh, which would explain his odd comment a couple of years ago. _Has it really been two years since I’ve talked to Raleigh? It feels like much longer_. And then another thought occurs to her: _Could Chuck feel Yancy's death, too?_

But all that would have to wait. After checking her emails, Mako sees a message from Shao telling her to fly back to Hong Kong the following week. After volunteering to be a liaison between Shao Industries and the newly dubbed Pan-Pacific Defense Corps, Mako had planned to fly halfway across the world every few months to report on the state of the jaegers still in service. But not after she just arrived.

Dozens of unanswered questions swirl around her mind: _What was Raleigh doing here all these years, if he wasn’t here just for basic training? Is he even still alive? Did he and Chuck pilot a jaeger together? Will I be able to get access to those classified personnel reports? And now that I’m here, will Sensei help me enroll in the Jaeger Academy?_

At least she can start by answering one. After confirming with Shao about meeting in Hong Kong, she marches up to the commanding officers' floor and knocks on Sensei's door.

"It's open."

She enters, bows, and takes a deep breath to steel herself. " _Sensei_ ," she says in Japanese, " _I want to become a pilot_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to all my regular readers for following this story so closely. I truly appreciate the kudos and heartfelt comments.
> 
> With the holidays coming up, I won't have time to keep up my one-chapter-a-week posting schedule. If I get some downtime near Christmas, I might be able to publish the last three chapters within a week or two. But if nothing else, I'll be back to my regular posting schedule come 2019.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> eadreytheiptscray
> 
> P.S. If you subscribe to the series, you won't have to worry about missing a spontaneous update. ;)
> 
> * * *
> 
> [This thread](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:22706) was my inspiration for Ceramander's design. Plus, how wicked would a six-legged horned salamander look crawling through the forest?


	7. Love at First Sight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK:  
> \- "Tree of Life" by Aretha Franklin  
> \- "Love at First Sight" by The Brobecks (chapter title inspiration)  
> \- "Better Than New" by Ramin Djawadi  
> \- "Goya No Machiawase" by Hello Sleepwalkers

**MONDAY, JANUARY 2, 2023**  
**OBLIVION BAY, WALDRON ISLAND, WASHINGTON**

 

Mako clutches her tablet to her chest and squints through the snowfall. Oblivion Bay, the jaeger graveyard, looks worse than she'd imagined. Twisted bits of metal stick out of the snow drifts like broken bones, and rust stains the snow blood-red. Mako glances at the jaeger profiles on her screen, knowing it'll be a long day trying to identify the salvageable mechs in this mess.

Sure, the PPDC had to be discrete in the early days of the Kaiju War. Oblivion Bay is, after all, on an inhabited island in the San Juan Islands. But from the looks of things, organization had been the last thing on their minds. _How could they just dump these jaegers here?_ Mako fumes. _Did they not think restoration was an option?_

There are nine jaegers buried underneath the snow and ice. Mako glances at her list again:

  * **Brawler Yukon** : Mark I jaeger, destroyed in 2020
  * **Tacit Ronin** : Mark I jaeger, destroyed in 2018
  * **Horizon Brave** : Mark I jaeger, destroyed in 2020
  * **Victory Alpha** : Mark I jaeger, destroyed in 2016
  * **Coyote Tango** : Mark I jaeger, destroyed in 2022
  * **Solar Prophet** : Mark II jaeger, destroyed in 2021
  * **Eden Assassin** : Mark II jaeger, destroyed in 2022
  * **Lucky Seven** : Mark II jaeger, destroyed in 2022
  * **Lady Danger** : Mark III jaeger, destroyed in 2021



Resurrecting even one of these jaegers would be no easy task. So far, Mako and her team had run into every snag imaginable: The construction equipment had arrived late, a winter storm was brewing, and a thick layer of ice had entombed the jaegers along the shoreline.

Mako waves to the crane and excavator operators, and they follow her from the dock to the beach, the western boundary of Oblivion Bay. She gives them a thumbs-up, and they begin to chip away at the ice.

 _These look more alien than the kaiju_ , Mako thinks, instantly recognizing the signature construction of the Mark Is. Although the jaegers are nearly rusted over, Mako makes out stubby black legs, silver wrist-mounted blades, and yellow shoulder-mounted cryo cannons. But on closer inspection, she notices that the jaegers' Conn-Pods, including their critical mechanical and electrical parts, are corroded beyond repair. She crosses Brawler Yukon, Tacit Ronin, and Horizon Brave off her list.

The next pile of jaegers hadn't endured the storm surges that the three Mark Is near the beach had, but they're still in bad shape. One had been dumped in Oblivion Bay with its Conn-Pod hatch open, leaving it to collect years' worth of rainwater. The other had been ripped to pieces, either by the kaiju or curious islanders.

That leaves only four jaegers. _This isn't a great start to the Jaeger Restoration Program_. Mako scans the jaeger boneyard again, spying an oddly shaped mound nestled against the hillside. _This must be where the rest were dumped_. She signals the excavator operators to start digging at the site while she jogs across Oblivion Bay to meet them.

Mako curses under her breath when she sees the jaegers. After being destroyed by the kaiju, they had succumbed to the elements out here in Oblivion Bay. _None of these are viable candidates for the program._ Even if Mako and her team did manage to untangle the mechs' mangled limbs, the jaegers would have to be rebuilt from scratch—all have fried computer systems and horribly rusted joints.

The wind and snow pick up, and Mako realizes they're out of time.

 _I'm not leaving here without a jaeger_ , she thinks, stamping the snow-covered ground in frustration. But instead of hitting solid ground, her boot crashes through the ice into a crevice, and she nearly topples down the hillside. When she pulls her foot out of the rock pile, a flash of red catches her eye.

_Is that… is that a jaeger?_

She shoves her tablet into her coat pocket and starts digging. Slowly, the jaeger materializes in front of her. Mako waves frantically to her teammates, who signal to the crane operators to join them. Together, they unearth a navy blue and silver mech tucked in a jaeger-shaped hole in the hillside. The streak of red Mako saw is just a sliver of color running down the jaeger's "head," where its radio transmission tech is housed, and its chest-mounted Conn-Pod.

 _Lady Danger_ , Mako confirms, looking at her jaeger identification chart. The jaeger is largely free of corrosion, and aside from wildlife taking shelter in its Conn-Pod, it shows no signs of damage from the elements. Its rocky tomb had been its salvation.

She holds her breath as the cranes grab hold of the jaeger and lift it onto the awaiting tractor trailer. It's then that she notices the extent of the damage: Vines had grown over a gaping hole in the Conn-Pod, and the jaeger's left arm had been severed at the shoulder.

Her left side starts tingling, and she massages her ribs, right over her katana tattoo, to get rid of the sensation. With a sinking feeling, she confirms the date of destruction in her notes. She knows exactly what happened to this jaeger. And who died in it.

* * *

The first Friday in April finds Mako alone on the Jaeger Testing floor at Shao Industries. Her watch beeps; it's midnight. But she can't quit working now, not when more and more kaiju threaten to lay waste to the other side of the world.

Earlier that afternoon, everyone in the facility had watched with bated breath as Cherno Alpha charged into the Breach, then re-emerged covered in blue blood—Kaiju Blue, now known to be toxic.

Mako sets her hands on her hips as she surveys Lady Danger. She and her team had picked apart and disassembled the jaeger over the past three months. Its hydraulic systems and reactor core had been rebuilt only days ago. Now it's time to start thinking about improvements.

For once, she welcomes the memories of Yancy's death. It's her chance to truly study what went wrong. _The plasma cannons were too slow, the Conn-Pod had no escape protocols, and Lady Danger had no secondary weapons._ Mako sighs. _I have a lot of work ahead of me._

The months pass quickly as she buries herself in her work. Her 23rd birthday comes and goes, and she misses multiple dinner reservations with Newt and Dr. Gottlieb. Restoring Lady Danger becomes more than just a work project. It distracts her from reality—like Tam getting diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, Sensei refusing to let Mako enroll in the Jaeger Academy, and Jake running away from home.

Her one victory is getting a glimpse into Lady Danger's pilot history on her most recent visit to the Shatterdome. Her information came from none other than Tendo, who she learned had joined the PPDC as the J-Tech Chief LOCCENT Officer. Against his better judgement, perhaps, he'd scribbled a few details on a scrap piece of paper in red pen. "It's time I returned the favor," he had said solemnly. Mako didn't know what he meant by it.

Mako pulls the now-crumpled paper out of her pocket. On it are the names and statuses of Lady Danger's five pilots:

  * Alexander "Ace" Smith (ret.)
  * Catherine "Spades" Smith (ret.)
  * Yancy Becket (KIA)
  * Raleigh Becket (discharged, whereabouts unknown)
  * Charles "Chuck" Hansen (reassigned, Striker Eureka)



Only one Ranger on that list could ride Lady Danger with her, and Mako doesn't like the thought. Still, Chuck Hansen is her only shot at becoming a jaeger pilot. She knows she'll have to talk to him soon— _when Lady Danger comes to the Shatterdome with me_ , she decides.

* * *

Her first real encounter with Chuck goes about as well as she could expect. After spotting him and who she assumes is his co-pilot in the mess hall, she decides to forego her tradition of eating dinner in the jaeger bay with Lady Danger.

"Is this seat taken?" She asks, motioning to an empty spot on the bench across from Chuck. When Chuck doesn't answer, his co-pilot pipes up.

"Of course. Plenty of food on our table." The older man sticks out his hand. "Herc Hansen. My boy Chuck and I pilot Striker."

 _Father-son team, then_. She shakes his hand and introduces herself. Chuck doesn't accept her handshake.

“He’s more like my co-pilot,” Chuck says with venom in his tone and arrogance in his eyes.

Mako just nods politely, taking a seat beside Herc. _I'm with Yancy—I wouldn't want to Drift with him in a million years. But he’s my only chance to pilot Lady Danger_.

She makes small talk with them—mostly Herc, who has a lot more decorum than his son. Still, Mako can't help feeling sorry for Chuck, at least a little bit. Drifting with a stranger is one thing, but with a parent? _No wonder he has issues._

Cornering Chuck alone proves to be a challenge. The mess hall is out of the question. Despite their animosity, Herc and Chuck eat their meals together, albeit in uncomfortable silence. However, Chuck usually leaves the table before his father. One day, Mako follows him.

That's when she finds out about Max. Or rather, Max finds out about her.

She loses Chuck in the labyrinth of hallways. As she debates which direction to take at a fork, she hears jingling and clicking sounds coming from her left. A bulldog bounds around the corner seconds later, with a frustrated Chuck chasing after the loose leash.

“Oi, Max!” Chuck stops halfway down the hallway when he sees Mako petting his dog, who's rolling on the floor and drooling everywhere. “Max, c’mon.”

“I didn’t know you had a dog,” Mako says, grinning when Max licks her face. “I thought dogs weren't allowed in the Shatterdome.”

“Yeah, well, when your dad's been here ten years....” He shoves his hands in his pockets and saunters over to Mako.

Mako stands and hands over Max's leash. Chuck takes it and brushes past her, presumably to walk Max outside. She leaves him be. _Chuck may not like talking to me_ , she thinks, _but maybe I can reach him through his dog._

She gets her second chance to corner Chuck after dinner a week later. Mako comes prepared this time: She had saved Max a few bites of steak. Max, of course, smells it instantly when he trots toward her.

“He likes you." Chuck mutters, watching Max chomp greedily on his treat. When Max looks up, Mako swears he's smiling at the two of them. Like he's happy they're getting along.

It's after their third encounter that Mako feels like she's making progress.

“Word is you’re resurrecting that old rust bucket."

Mako nods. At her feet, Max chows down on a few bites of sweet potato she'd saved from lunch, then resumes sniffing around the Shatterdome grounds. “I want to pilot her someday, too.”

Chuck's face brightens for a second. “Yeah? You in the Jaeger Academy?”

“No. Not yet. I hope I can enroll after restoring Lady Danger.”

“You need to apply now if you want to get in. The next recruitment class starts soon.”

She gazes off into the forest for a few seconds before speaking. “I need approval first.”

“Why? Who won’t let you in?”

“My Sen—father."

“Oh.” That gets Chuck's attention, as Mako figures it would. “Yeah, I know a little something about that.”

“You pilot Striker Eureka with your father, right? Is it hard to find time to yourself?”

“You have no idea.”

Max whines, and Chuck lets him venture further from the Shatterdome's side entrance. Mako falls in step with Chuck. It’s colder out in the open, but the fresh air is nice.

“Dad uprooted us when this whole thing started, and I didn't make friends for a while. College was the only time I got away from him. But even then, he was only a few kilometers away.”

“You went to PRU, right?”

Chuck nods. “And I told myself I wasn't gonna end up here. But the program sounded interesting. I thought I could make a name for myself. When I first joined, I…” He sighs. “Things were different. For a year, at least.”

“What happened?” _Yancy_ , Mako figures, but she can't help asking, anyway.

Chuck crosses his arms. “Why do you wanna know, anyway? You didn’t talk to me at all in college.”

“I didn’t know you then. I only heard about you through—"

“Yancy, right?" Chuck stiffens. "Well he’s dead. There’s no changing that.”

Mako flinches. _I didn't expect that reaction._

“C'mon, Max.” When his dog doesn't leave Mako's side, Chuck yanks on the leash. Max glances back at Mako with what seems like an apologetic look as he and Chuck disappear inside. Mako shivers in the September chill as she watches them leave.

 _I don't care if he doesn't like me_ , Mako decides, heading back into the Shatterdome. _We're getting in that jaeger, whether he likes it or not._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate that I left y'all on a cliffhanger with the previous chapter, but I hope the spontaneous updates this week will make up for it. ;)
> 
> Here's the first of the last three chapters of Part 2 a few days early—enjoy!


	8. My Father Thinks That I'm Nowhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK:  
> \- "Ringo Oiwake" by Kenny Barron  
> \- "Rokutouseino Yoru" by Aimer  
> \- "Re:make" by One OK Rock  
> \- "Take Me to the Top" by One OK Rock  
> \- "Wherever You Are" by One OK Rock  
> \- "Shove" by L7 (chapter title inspiration)

**WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2024**  
**THE SHATTERDOME MESS HALL**

 

Mako senses the tension as soon as she steps into the mess hall—every eye is glued to the TV. The news station is covering the United Nations' decision from earlier that morning. Mako listens, her stomach churning, as she stands in line for her food.

"The kaiju evolved," a British representative is saying to the reporter. "The jaegers aren't the most viable line of defense anymore."

A ticker at the bottom of the screen confirms what Mako suspects: _Pan-Pacific Defense Corps Jaeger Program defunded. Anti-Kaiju Wall construction begins. Protests erupt in cities across Pacific Northwest._

Chuck snorts. “That’s bull—"

“Oi,” Herc interrupts, shooting him a warning look. He sees Mako over Chuck's shoulder and waves her over. She takes her usual seat across from Chuck, who nods curtly to her. Mako nods back. She picks at the vegetables on her plate while she watches the TV.

The news footage cuts from a journalist standing outside the UN headquarters in New York to a clip of yesterday's session, the one Sensei is returning from. On screen, his gaze remains impassive, but Mako knows there's fury behind it.

"My Kaiju Science researchers," Sensei says to the council, "have made enormous strides toward understanding the physics of the Breach and the Anteverse. You have their report. The more we understand, the closer we get to eliminating the threat. We must have sufficient combat assets to take the fight to the kaiju."

"Marshal Pentecost," an American representative argues, "we've been through this before. The simple fact is there is nothing we can do to close the Breach."

"With our current assets, perhaps," Sensei says. "That is why our mission has become even more urgent. The Mark V-R jaeger is critical to our efforts to seal the Breach. We must continue to develop new combat technology as the kaiju continue to evolve."

"The Pan-Pacific Defense Working Group feels otherwise, Marshal," the Panamanian representative says. The news clip cuts to Sensei gritting his teeth; he doesn't reply.

The American's next words sound rehearsed: "The world appreciates what you and your Rangers have done, Marshal Pentecost. But I speak for my fellow representatives when I say that we will not continue to fund a, quite frankly, failing military program. We want to protect our people. And our people feel safer behind a wall."

Mako inhales sharply. _It's hard to run a successful program on meager funding_ , she thinks sourly. _Besides, building a wall means those Rangers died for nothing. Like Yancy. And Tam._

The news clip cuts off there. A smart choice, considering that Sensei's next words are, "they won't be safer. Nothing is impenetrable, least of all a wall."

Mako had woken up at 3:45 a.m. the day before to watch the session live on C-SPAN. The early start had been worth it—in his frustration, Sensei let slip a few razor-sharp comments to the spineless representatives. _If Sensei was going to go down_ , she'd thought, _he was going to go down fighting_.

Chuck voices what Mako is thinking: "So that's it? They're shutting down the Jaeger Program just like that?"

"Suits and ties and flashy smiles," Herc mutters. "That's all they are."

Mako can't bring herself to finish her dinner. Sliding her half-eaten veggie plate toward Chuck—"for Max," she tells him—she excuses herself and stalks to Lady Danger's bay. She blares One OK Rock through her headphones as she works well into the night and early morning.

* * *

In the months that follow, the once-bustling Shatterdome becomes a ghost town. After that final blow to the Jaeger Program, all nonessential personnel are forced out. The strike crew without jaegers are assigned to active teams or forced into early retirement. Half of the Lady Danger Update Team goes, too. Even the cadets in the Jaeger Academy are given a choice: Wait indefinitely for a jaeger assignment while they take on other duties in the Shatterdome, or work as beta testers for Shao Industries in Hong Kong.

Mako isn't as anxious as her fellow cadets. _By the time I graduate in August, Lady Danger will be finished. And I'll be a pilot._

That's her hope, anyway. Months before, Sensei finally relented, allowing Mako to enroll in the Jaeger Academy back in March. Mako figures his preoccupation with Tam's health had something to do with it. Unfortunately, Tam had passed away the week before Mako started Ranger training. Dealing with Tam's death was hard enough without spending eighteen hours a day in debriefings, lectures, and Kwoon training. She barely made it through her first trimester of the program.

 _I can't afford to give up. Not after I've worked so hard._ Still, she can't help worrying about the fate of the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps.

The shuttered jaeger bays speak volumes about the dire state of the Jaeger Program. Where there were twenty-one jaegers in 2019, now there are only eleven. And with each new kaiju attack, another jaeger falls. 

Because of dwindling funding and the sheer number of empty jaeger bays, Sensei had decided to relocate the remaining jaegers and their strike teams to the center of the base. Not even Lady Danger would stay in her old bay. _It's all for the best_ , Mako had thought when she'd heard the news. _Better to leave memories of Raleigh and Yancy undisturbed_.

It's in one of these empty jaeger bays in the outskirts of the Shatterdome that Mako finds Chuck one day, throwing a Frisbee around with Max. Mako leans against the wall for a few minutes, just watching them.

Eventually, Max spots Mako and trots over, dropping the slimy Frisbee at her feet. She smiles—her first in a long time—and tosses it toward the other end of the room. While Max bounds after it, she joins Chuck in the middle of the cavernous space.

"Lady Danger is almost ready," she says, knowing small talk doesn't work with him. "I still need a co-pilot. Are you in?"

"What makes you think you'll make the cut, Mori?" Chuck mutters. He takes the Frisbee from Max and sends it flying across the room. "Whatever Pentecost has planned is going to be a suicide mission. You're just a rookie, even with fifty-one kills in the simulator."

She clenches her fist. _Take the high road, Mako_ , she tells herself. "I came this far. I'm not giving up now. I got through Ranger training, and I'm almost done restoring Lady Danger."

Chuck shakes his head. "Still don't know how you did both for the past six months."

"Caffeine and determination," she replies. "You still haven't answered my question."

Chuck throws the Frisbee hard. It flies across the jaeger bay and bounces off the steel doors. "And pilot that old rust bucket? No thanks."

"You and I both know that's not why you refuse to pilot Lady Danger with me."

"What do you want me to say?" Chuck huffs, ignoring the Frisbee Max drops at his feet. "That the last time I stepped into that Conn-Pod, Yancy was still alive? That because we both Drifted with the Beckets, we're going to tap into their memories—plus each other's?"

"Don't you want a chance to get out of your father's shadow again?"

Chuck doesn't answer. But from his slumped shoulders and faraway expression, Mako assumes he's thinking it doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Mako pitches the idea to Sensei that night, anyway. " _You said if I could find a suitable co-pilot, you would let me pilot Lady Danger_."

" _I remember_ ," Sensei says. Mako can't read any emotion behind his tone or gaze.

" _I may have found one_."

Sensei raises an eyebrow.

" _Chuck Hansen_."

" _Mako—_ "

" _He knows her better than anyone. And unlike many of the candidates we're considering, Chuck is a veteran pilot—_ "

" _Mako, we've talked about this. We're not talking about it again_."

" _You promised me. I should be the one riding Lady Danger_."

Sensei sighs and steps closer to her. He doesn't lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Whether because she's now a Ranger or because he's still grieving over Tam, Sensei no longer shows any fatherly affection toward Mako. He no longer lets her call him Sensei, either.

" _Vengeance is like an open wound, Mako. You cannot take that level of emotion into the Drift_."

 _And what level of the emotion do the other pilots take into it? Have they forgotten about their lost colleagues? Their fear of the kaiju?_ She wants to ask. But instead she says, " _for my family. I have to do this_."

" _If we had more time_."

" _But—_ "

"Dismissed, Miss Mori," he says in English, turning his back to her. Reluctantly, Mako bows and retreats from his office.

* * *

 _Sensei did consider my suggestion about Chuck_ , she thinks sourly as she glances over Lady Danger's pilot candidate list. Tacked to the bottom is the name Charles Hansen, the only single candidate amid the finalist pairs.

With funding and time running out, the PPDC is scrambling to prepare for a final assault on the Anteverse. In just a couple of weeks, these candidates will prove themselves in the Kwoon. The pair with the strongest Drift Compatibility will become Lady Danger's new pilots.

 _He hasn't included another name. Surely that means I still have a shot. We don't have time for surprises._ But Sensei refuses to answer her questions on the matter. With Lady Danger restored and her pilot dreams in tatters, Mako knows she has no choice but to return to Shao Industries next month.

She indulges herself one last time by inspecting Lady Danger's Conn-Pod. The rig is roomier and its tech more advanced, but its character hasn't changed. Mako imagines for a minute that she's on the right side of the Conn-Pod, staring defiantly into the electric-blue eyes of an enormous kaiju.

But when Yancy's ghost echoes in her mind, she comes to her senses. She steps out of the Conn-Pod and takes one last look at the gleaming jaeger in front of her.

That night, just before bed, Mako puts the finishing touches on her report and sends it to Sensei:

——

**PAN-PACIFIC DEFENSE CORPS**  
**J-TECH PROJECT UPGRADE**

LADY DANGER UPDATE PROGRESS  
DECEMBER 15, 2024

The project of restoring and upgrading Lady Danger (Mark III jaeger destroyed in 2021) is complete. A list of improvements follows:

UPGRADED REACTOR COMPONENTS

  * Reactor fuel rods replenished
  * Coolant circulation system rebuilt
  * New venting system installed for improved reactor efficiency and venting of waste heat



UPGRADED WEAPONS SYSTEMS

  * Initiation protocols for plasma cannons overhauled, reducing warmup delays by 15%
  * Plasma reservoirs for both cannons restored
  * Dual chain swords installed and fully integrated into neurocommand systems



UPGRADED CONN-POD TECHNOLOGY

  * Post-Mark III advances in interface systems integrated
  * Automatic partition technology and retreat mechanisms integrated per most recent PPDC specifications
  * Hydraulics and neuromuscular assemblies restored and updated, resulting in faster reaction times and increased endurance



MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS

  * Jaeger exterior repainted using factory colors
  * Painted insignia restored
  * Other minor improvements in aesthetics and functionality completed



Thorough vetting of upgrades demonstrates complete integration into existing circuitry undamaged during Lady Danger's last combat deployment. Tendo Choi has observed vetting and simulations and is in agreement with this assessment.

Screening of potential pilots is complete. Seven candidate finalists, three Drift Compatible pairs and one active-duty Ranger, have been briefed and are prepared for physical trials in the Kwoon as soon as Lady Danger is cleared for service.

Personal aside: This candidate objects to being removed from the list of finalists.

Submitted by Mako Mori on behalf of the Lady Danger Upgrade Team.

——

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the chapter content comes from the official Pacific Rim novel by Alex Irvine. I can't praise this book enough—it fills in a lot of gaps that the first movie just didn't have the time to explain. (Obviously, the details in this chapter are different because plot reasons.)


	9. Chapter 9

**WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2025**  
**ANTI-KAIJU WALL, PACIFIC RIM NATIONAL PARK RESERVE**

 

The buzzing of chop saws, the hissing of welders, the clanking of steel hitting steel—the noise is deafening. But it's unavoidable on a construction site. A minor inconvenience is the price to pay for delaying the end of the world.

A massive barrier, still no more than a steel and concrete skeleton after eight months, skirts the edge of Pacific Rim Highway, closing off the entirety of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. A sign in front reads "Anti-Kaiju Wall, Sector One." Someone had spray painted the word "never" over the now-expired completion date.

Even if the Wall does get finished by the time it sees a kaiju, it won’t hold. Nothing can stop those things from tearing mankind's greatest inventions to shreds.

Shouldering his rucksack, Raleigh stalks toward the crowd gathering on the sunny side of the Wall to begin the morning shift. Miles, the beefy foreman of Sector One, stands on top of a pile of crates with red ration cards in his hand. Raleigh does his best to stay out of the guy's line of sight.

"Now I've got good news and bad news, fellas," he calls. "What do you want to hear first?"

"The bad news?" This comes from Tommy, a portly guy to Raleigh's left. He's gnawing greedily on a roll.

"Three guys died yesterday working the top of the Wall." Miles pauses for dramatic effect while a hush settles over the crowd of construction workers.

"And the good news?" Tommy asks with his mouth full.

"I've got three new openings." Miles fans out the ration cards. "Top of the Wall."

Tommy snatches one immediately. "Got no choice," he mutters unconvincingly to anyone within earshot. "Five mouths to feed, y'know?"

Another worker takes the second reluctantly. No one takes the third. Working the top of the Wall isn't anyone's first choice. If the twelve-meter fall isn't fatal, landing on the rebar spikes sticking out of the foundation would be. For many, more food isn't worth the risk.

"No takers?" Miles asks, waving the ration card around. The men nearest him fidget and look away.

"I'll do it," Raleigh mutters, walking up.

"Yeah?" Miles raises the ration card above his head. "Still sticking around, eh, kid? You sure you got the guts to work way up there?"

"I'm comfortable with heights," Raleigh says evenly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Is that right? Well, I got no one left to mop you up if you swan dive. _Comprende_?"

Raleigh clenches his jaw but nods once. Miles lowers the card, and Raleigh snatches it out of his hand, joining the other men trekking to the construction elevator. He feels Miles' eyes boring into his back.

The sun is almost at its peak when Raleigh looks up from his work, stretching out after hunching over for so long to weld an angle brace. From his vantage point, straddling a support beam jutting precariously over the Wall, he sees the sunlight glint off the vast Pacific Ocean. The December sky is a dull blue, but charcoal-gray skies are rolling in from the northeast. For a moment, he imagines he's standing on the deck of a lighthouse, nothing around but the gulls and the trees and the sea.

And then someone shouts at him from below. Reluctantly, he pulls himself down to Earth. He clips himself into a safety harness and drops down onto the main staging area. Just his luck—there's someone there he recognizes.

"Raleigh, how's it going?" Tommy grins up at him over the beam he's trimming.

Raleigh just shrugs, deliberately stepping to the other edge of the beam. Tommy doesn't get the hint.

"Did you hear about Striker Eureka?" He jerks his thumb behind him, nowhere close to the direction of the Shatterdome. "Got decommissioned yesterday. Last of the jaegers to go."

 _It doesn't matter to me. I'm not a Ranger anymore_ , Raleigh thinks. But he doesn't bother arguing. He nods curtly.

"Wonder what'll happen to it. Don't those things cost, like, a hundred million each?"

Raleigh shrugs again. Thankfully, Tommy gets it through his thick skull. They work in silence for a few minutes. After they lash the beam to a crane, Raleigh watches the steel rise against the darkening sky to the highest point of the Wall.

"You used to ride in one of those jaegers, right? So how'd you end up in a hole like this?"

"I love the hours." He fixes an icy stare at Tommy. "And the silence."

"Oh, me, too. Love it. Some people just don't get it. Always yapping their gums and not taking any time to listen…"

Raleigh shuts his visor when Tommy starts blabbering about his kids. The welding torch should drown him out. Hopefully.

The next couple of hours drag by. No matter how many times he tries to lose Tommy in a crowd of workers or ditch him to work high up on the Wall, he can't seem to shake the guy. All Raleigh wants to do by the end of his shift is retreat to his cheap motel room and sit in silence. But first, he has to pick up his rations from the Commissary.

The Commissary and adjacent mess hall are little more than a Quonset hut with a plywood pergola out back. Workers who finish up early get the best seats indoors, near the coveted heaters. But the rest, like the workers at the top of the Wall, are left to sit at the tables outside. The better food makes up for it. Sometimes.

The TV screens in the Commissary are playing an endless stream of Kaiju War news coverage, broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Raleigh usually avoids them. But the word "kaiju" grabs his attention.

Staring up at one of the screens with the workers around him, he watches a newscaster narrate what's happening just on the other side of the park:

"—an enormous Category IV broke through the wall in less than an hour." Shaky footage shows a kaiju—Mutavore, according to the ticker—smashing through the concrete-and-steel structure with its axe-like head. With a sinking feeling, Raleigh realizes it breached Sector Five—where just twelve kilometers away, the city of Nanaimo lay on the bay.

"That… that thing…" Tommy had caught up with Raleigh. "It went through the Wall like it was nothing."

"This is the third attack in less than three months," the newscaster continues. "Two more jaegers were destroyed." On cue, the footage shows the flaming remains of Echo Saber and the PPDC firefighters trying valiantly to put out the blaze. The next clip shows Vulcan Specter's crushed Conn-Pod lying face-down in a creekbed.

The newscaster returns with a chipper smile. "Recently decommissioned Australian jaeger Striker Eureka, a Mark V piloted by father-son team Herc and Chuck Hansen, finally took the kaiju down."

Another clip focuses on Striker Eureka racing to intercept Mutavore on the main road to the city. It skids to a stop a few dozen meters away, braces itself, and launches a barrage of missiles from its shoulders. There must be a helicopter circling the fight; Raleigh hears the faint sound of rotors in the background.

The dog tags under his shirt feel heavier around his neck. _If Lady Danger had been nearly as fast or powerful as Striker Eureka…_ But Raleigh doesn't let himself finish that thought.

The news segment switches to a live interview of the two pilots. Raleigh clenches his jaw when Chuck pops up on screen. He looks grizzled, like he's seen his share of horrors, too. And it looks like he'd gotten in a Conn-Pod with his old man, after all.

He'd never been one to share his life story, at least with Raleigh, but based on residual memories Raleigh picked up Drifting with Yancy— _no, that was years ago. It's in the past._

"Look, they decommissioned the Jaeger Program because of mediocre pilots," Chuck says into the camera. "It's that simple."

 _That's enough of that_. Raleigh pulls himself away from the TV. He picks out the food that looks least bad, gets his ration card stamped, and ambles to a half-empty table outside. Of course he would pass Miles on the way there. Several empty beer cans are sitting by the guy's elbow.

"You wanna hear a joke?" Miles slurs, leaning over the table as his buddies listen eagerly. "What do jaegers and my marriage have in common?"

Raleigh sets his jaw and keeps walking to the end of the row, his hard day's work in a plastic bag. To his chagrin, Tommy follows him.

"They both seemed like a good idea at the time," Miles shouts so Raleigh could still hear him. "Now they ain't working and they still cost a fortune!"

Raleigh whirls around. _You insult the Jaeger Program, you insult Yancy's memory—_

"He's not worth it, man," Tommy says, laying a hand on Raleigh's shoulder. Raleigh shrugs him off.

Miles winks at Raleigh from across the mess area as if to say, _come and get it, hot shot. You wanna go? You won't have a job tomorrow._ Reluctantly, Raleigh sits down and tears into the grocery bag.

"With the loss of more jaegers today," Raleigh hears the newscaster say faintly, "do you think it supports the theory that the Jaeger Program isn't working anymore?"

"We stopped the kaiju, yeah?" That's Herc's voice—gruff, Australian, to the point. Raleigh watches him wait for the reporter to nod. "Then I have no further comment."

"I do," Chuck says.

Raleigh rolls his eyes. _That's the Chuck I remember—always eager to prove himself to people who don't care._

"That's Striker's tenth kill to date. Kind of a record."

The reporter jumps in before Herc can pull Chuck away. "You're still keeping track at a time like this?"

"What else is there to do, sweetheart?" And he winks. Raleigh grunts and turns back to his dinner: a cup of dry cereal.

"Hey, Raleigh," Tommy says, "if you could help me out with, y'know, a few extra rations. Got five mouths to feed."

"Take the cereal," Raleigh says without looking up. He shoves a cup toward Tommy. "Just cut the crap. I know you don't have kids."

"Who can at a time like this?"

_Fair point._

Raleigh scarfs down the last of his cereal and flees the mess area, willing to sit out in the cold winter afternoon instead of back there, hearing the media and guys like Miles pick at the Jaeger Program like vultures. It's then that he sees the Sikorsky— _so it wasn't my imagination_. He saunters over to get a closer look. Though he can't make out the insignia on the side, he has a feeling he knows who'll step out of that helicopter.

His hunch is right. Stacker Pentecost steps onto the snowy ground and marches toward Raleigh. A crowd starts gathering around the construction site and hanging out of the Commissary to see what's going on.

"Mr. Becket," Pentecost says. His chipper tone makes it seem like they planned this meeting only an hour ago.

"Marshal. Looking sharp." Compared with Raleigh's grimy sweater and work jacket, Pentecost looks like he just stepped out of a propaganda reel with his navy tailored suit and topcoat.

"Long time."

"Three years, ten months." _And four days and thirteen hours_ , he thinks bitterly.

"May I have a word?"

Raleigh glances around. It's such a formal statement, considering they're standing in two inches of snow on a construction site kilometers from the nearest city. Workers are still milling about, spilling out of the Commissary and ogling from the Wall.

"Step into my office, Marshal," he says, leading Pentecost to an incomplete section of the Wall that's somewhat sheltered from the wind and the freezing rain threatening to fall.

"It took me a while to find you," Pentecost says. "Anchorage, Juneau, Vancouver—"

"Man in my position travels around, chasing jobs to make a living. What do you want?"

"I've spent the last eight months activating everything I can get my hands on. There's an old jaeger. A Mark III. You may know it. It needs a pilot."

 _I'm not stepping into a jaeger again, not after…_ He shakes his head. "I'm guessing I wasn't your first choice?"

"You are my first choice." Pentecost grimaces. "All the other Mark III pilots are dead."

 _We both know that's not true. But at least that means you're not considering Chuck_. "Didn't you have me dismissed for insubordination?"

"I did. But I'm a firm believer in second chances, Mr. Becket. Aren't you?"

Raleigh sighs and stands up. "Look, I can't have anyone else in my head again. I'm done." Bitter memories of the Knifehead attack surface— _It went through the hull! Raleigh, listen to me_ —and he shakes his head to wash them away.

"I was still connected to my brother when he died," he continues. "I can't go through that again." _I've got no business being a pilot,_ he thinks, _not without Yancy._ Without waiting for Pentecost's reply, Raleigh starts back toward the Commissary.

"Haven't you heard, Mr. Becket?" Pentecost calls. "The world is coming to an end. So where would you rather die: here? Or in a jaeger?"

 _Wrong question_ , Raleigh thinks, stepping out into the freezing rain. _The real question is, how many beers can I buy with this shiny red ration card?_

As it turns out, a whole six-pack. Before even stepping away from the cashier's counter, he cracks one open and shoves the rest in his rucksack. Miles' raucous laughter once again sets him on edge.

"Flyboy! And here I thought we'd be losing you to your fancy military friend. Reminds me of another joke: How many jaegers does it take to change a light bulb?"

Raleigh sips his beer, brushing past him to the farthest empty table he can find.

"None! 'Cause these days, everybody knows they can't change a thing!"

A spark ignites something inside Raleigh, and he whirls around, clenching his beer can in his right fist.

"Easy, boy," Miles says with a smirk. "In case you've forgotten, I'm the one in charge 'round here."

Raleigh stalks toward Miles' table and raises his beer. "Then let's drink to that." He takes another sip, then sets the can down in front of the foreman. Raleigh has to lean down to do it. That's when Miles claps a beefy hand on Raleigh's shoulder.

"Where's mine?" Miles asks.

"That one's yours." And Raleigh slams Miles' head onto the can. Foam sprays everywhere, soaking Raleigh's sweater and splashing into his beard. Miles roars in pain. Several workers around them looked like they want to make a move, but they decide to stay seated. A few uneasy laughs soon turn into thunderous applause.

 _Time to go_. Without looking back, Raleigh shoulders his rucksack and saunters toward the helicopter, which is still waiting in the center of the construction site.

"Hey, Tommy," Raleigh says as he leaves the mess area, flipping his half-punched ration card in Tommy's direction. "Go feed those kids."

Tommy grins back.

As Raleigh approaches the helicopter, he sees Pentecost standing placidly to the side, like he'd just stepped out of the cabin. "Change of heart?" He shouts over the roar of the chopper's rotors.

"I lost my job," Raleigh shouts back. "How come you waited?"

Pentecost ushers Raleigh inside and shuts the doors. "I figured if it had been three years, ten months, the least I could do was wait another half-hour."

* * *

The Shatterdome looks different than Raleigh remembers. For starters, the lighted helipad is new. But now that the Kaiju War is public knowledge, there's no use keeping the Shatterdome a secret anymore. The lack of personnel swarming around doesn't strike him as normal, though. _Maybe everyone's inside, out of the rain_ , Raleigh muses.

It's not the first question on his mind. On the half-hour flight to the Shatterdome, he'd asked Pentecost a million questions: "What Mark III is still in service? Who's my co-pilot? What's our game plan? Why me and not a Ranger fresh out of the Jaeger Academy?" Instead of getting answers, he was met with stone-cold silence. After ten minutes, Raleigh had given up.

From this vantage point, high above the park and in the dimming evening light, Raleigh sees the ghost of Trespasser's rampage through the forest. Saplings are just starting to grow back on the trail toward the sea. The well-traveled path to the Breach, however, looks fresh as always. Had it really been almost four years since he'd taken that same trail by jaeger?

The Sikorsky touches down and jolts Raleigh back into the present. Pentecost is already across the helipad by the time Raleigh stands and collects his rucksack. Squinting through the driving rain, Raleigh makes out a cargo helicopter touching down. Tanks of amber liquid filled with dark blobs emerge from the cabin first, followed by two people swallowed in their winter coats. One is walking briskly with a limp and a cane. _I wonder what the rush is_ , Raleigh muses.

In the center of the helipad, two other figures stand under identical black umbrellas. Pentecost is one, based on his commanding stature. The other is talking animatedly with him, based on their hand movements. When Raleigh approaches, Pentecost hands him a black umbrella.

"So this is it," Raleigh says, hoping to break the ice with Pentecost. "You still haven't told me what I'm doing here, Marshal."

"We're going for the Breach," he said.

 _Okay, then. Straight to the point_. "And?"

"You and a couple of other jaegers will be running defense."

 _That sounds like we're going on the offensive_. It had been awhile since humanity had been in that position. Raleigh adds a few more questions to his list. He voices one that he know Pentecost will answer: "I thought all the Mark III jaegers were destroyed. What changed?"

"The Mark III Restoration Project. Speaking of which..."

Following Pentecost's gesture, Raleigh turns to the stranger hiding in the shadow of her oversized umbrella. The woman tilts her umbrella up, and Raleigh catches a flash of electric blue hair framing her face.

"Meet the woman in charge," Pentecost says with warmth in his voice. "Mr. Becket, this is Mako Mori."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope posting the last three chapters before January 2019 makes up for the cliffhangers I left y'all on. This chapter was a lot of fun to write, and I hope you had as much fun reading it.
> 
> Thanks again for keeping up with this series! Part three is coming soon, albeit on a modified posting schedule. However, each chapter will be long enough to make it worth the wait. Expect the next chapter in this series on the second weekend of January.
> 
> \- eadreytheiptscray
> 
> * * *
> 
> This whole chapter comes from the official Pacific Rim novel by Alex Irvine. The scene of Raleigh working on the Wall is a gem, and I hate that it wasn't included in the movie. Especially when he decks Miles before taking up Pentecost's offer. (It's in Chapter 4, Part 2 of the novel if you're eager to read it—you won't regret it.)
> 
> Of course, I changed a lot of the details for fic plot and characterization reasons. Some tweaks are based off my headcanons of what happened between Raleigh leaving the PPDC and working on the Wall:
> 
> \- Stacker Pentecost kept an eye on Raleigh for years through people like Tommy.  
> \- Raleigh wears sweaters exclusively to hide his drivesuit scars, and he grew a beard to avoid being recognized by former PPDC personnel working on the Wall.  
> \- Before taking on the Wall construction job eight months ago, Raleigh went back to Anchorage to try reconnecting with childhood friends. He then worked as a deckhand on fishing boats ( _a la_ Saltchuck) in Juneau and Vancouver.  
> \- He's still wearing his dog tags in the movie even though he says he's done being a Ranger. It must mean Raleigh switched dog tags with Yancy before every mission (based on [this heartbreaking Tumblr post](http://breha.tumblr.com/post/86077569930/seriously-though-bucky-says-you-cant-die-if))—and that he hasn't taken his brother's off since Knifehead.  
> \- Since Yancy died, Raleigh hasn't listened to music. At all.


End file.
